


The Summer Anthology

by EverythingPuddle



Series: From Earth to The Other Dimensions [2]
Category: Winx Club
Genre: Anthology, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Light Angst, Multi, Murder, Murder Mystery, Sexuality, gay culture, sexuality exploration, some gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverythingPuddle/pseuds/EverythingPuddle
Summary: A collection of stories taking place during the summer between seasons 1 and 2 of Winx Club.Chapter 1: A Friend Like Flora, Mirta reflects on her relationship with Flora and her past with LucyChapter 2-9: Magix is Burning, Riven is stuck on Magix for most of the summer and distracts himself from Darcy with going to a gay bar and investigating a string of murdersChapter 10: The Sun in Summer, Brandon has been sent to accompany Prince Thoren on a diplomatic mission to Solaria. Luckily, Stella is there to make the mission more interestingChapter 11-15: Sweethearts, Bloom is having some trouble with her powers. And with Eraklyon. And has somehow agreed to give a speech to the Domino Cultural SocietyUpdates Sunday evenings GMT/BST
Relationships: Bloom/Sky (Winx Club), Brandon/Stella (Winx Club), Flora/Mirta (Winx Club), Riven/Male OC
Series: From Earth to The Other Dimensions [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910863
Comments: 41
Kudos: 63





	1. A Friend Like Flora

Mirta watched Flora play with the ends of her hair as she lay staring up at the ceiling, humming a just-about recognisable song by Blue and the Jackets. As Mirta reached off the bed to pick up her clothes, she wondered what Flora might be thinking about. She hated having to leave so soon, but she was scheduled to help with Cloud Tower’s restoration in half an hour and it was going to take twenty minutes to get there.

“Will you be back for dinner?” Flora asked, still not moving from the bed. The room they’d been allocated had been two singles, but they’d pushed the mattress together so they could sleep together. Amazingly, their host family remained completely oblivious and Mirta had been told multiple times by the mother that her friendship with Flora was so endearing. She still didn’t know how to reply to that.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s pot pie night, I don’t want to miss that.”

Flora laughed and sat up, the morning light coming in through the gap in the curtains caught in her bedhead and gave her a glowing halo. 

“Do you want me to walk you there?” She offered. “I don’t need to be at Alfea until eleven.” 

“Thanks but I don’t need you to; I said I’d meet a few of my old classmates on the way over.”

“Lucy?” Flora’s inquiry sounded innocent enough, but it made Mirta fidget nervously. They had talked about her ex-girlfriend a few times before but it was uncomfortable; Lucy was in Mirta’s head and they both knew it. She was the reason that Flora had gently turned down the idea of exclusivity. Not that either of them was seeing anyone else anyway.

“She’ll probably be there, yeah…” Mirta said sheepishly.

“You know that’s okay, right? I’m not going to be mad if you spend time with her.”

“I know, it’s just,” Mirta paused to sigh. There were many reasons. She wasn’t used to being in this kind of relationship; before, if she’d been going out to see an ex-girlfriend, Lucy would have been deeply unhappy and would have made that known. It was a huge adjustment to be with someone who wasn’t demanding her full and undivided attention.

“‘It’s just’?” Flora prompted when she went quiet.

“Lucy keeps talking as if I’m coming back to Cloud Tower next year,” she said. She’d told her multiple times that her transfer to Alfea had already gone through and that this was really happening, but Lucy acted like she hadn’t heard. “I don’t know how to react to any of it.”

Flora shuffled over next to Mirta on the edge of the bed and put her arms around her. Mirta felt a gentle kiss on her collarbone.

“It might take the first day without you for her to come to terms with it. But you don’t have to let her make you uncomfortable, you are allowed to stand up for yourself.” Flora squeezed her tighter.

“I think she’s still mad at me.” 

“If she is, it’s not your fault.” 

“Still feels like it,” Mirta grumbled. “From her perspective I just vanished after the break up and then reappeared as a fairy, with a fairy.”

“If she didn’t want this to happen, maybe she should have broken your curse,” Flora smiled and kissed Mirta lovingly on the lips. “Then she would have been the one you made out with as soon as you were human again.”

Mirta’s ears went red. She hadn’t been thinking when she’d done that. She’d spent so long being cared for by Flora as a plant, and even before that they’d spent a lot of time alone together and so she’d just kissed her without really thinking about it. Flora clearly hadn’t minded though.

“You know that wasn’t the only reason, right?” She asked, trying not to sound as embarrassed as she was.

“I do,” Flora pressed her face into Mirta’s neck. “But I’m not going to forget that you did it.”

“Did you tell all your friends about it?” Mirta was still pink and Flora giggled.

“Yes, and Stella found it hilarious. So now a lot of other people know too.”

“Good to know her determination not to be weird about you liking girls hasn’t affected her gossiping,” Mirta observed. Stella’s attempts to be a good friend to Flora had manifested in wild gestures of support. And while it was certainly a preferable response to some Mirta had received, it weirder her out.

“I don’t think she’s actually uncomfortable as much as she just doesn’t want either of us to think that she’s uncomfortable,” Flora said. “How did people react when you told them about us?”

“Well…” Mirta paused. “I don’t really have that many friends here, and the ones at home don’t know you so they didn’t have a great deal to say.”

“I meant to ask,” Flora said as she got out of bed and went to pick out her own clothes for the day. Mirta admired her as she bent over to get a t-shirt. “Does Lucy actually know that we’re dating?”

“Yeah… someone told her before I got a chance to.”

Mirta wasn’t one hundred percent sure that she would have had the guts to tell Lucy face to face anyway. She’d seen her in Magix the one time Mirta had gone into the city on her own and it had made her heart plummet. Of course she still cared about Lucy, it hadn’t been that long since they’d been together. The way Lucy had stared sadly at her across the street had told her everything that Mirta needed to know.

They’d spoken later, though. And it was almost like before, but then Lucy had asked about Flora and she had remembered that things had changed.

“Sorry.” Flora turned around, clean underwear in hand, and gave her a sympathetic look. “I know this still upsets you.”

“I don’t know why you’re apologising, I’m the one with baggage and kindly making you deal with it.”

“I don’t mind,” Flora said as she continued getting dressed. “I like you.”

God only knew why. Mirta didn’t dislike the way she looked, but it was a mystery as to what a girl as beautiful as Flora saw in her. She wasn’t going to question it though, if Flora wanted to date her Mirta was absolutely ok with that.

“I like you too.” Mirta got up and kissed Flora, one hand in her messy hair. “But I am definitely late now and I haven’t even got dressed.”

It was hard to leave a room with Flora in it, but Mirta really did need to be at Cloud Tower soon. She got dressed quickly, and as soon as she was decent she dashed out the room, grabbing the croissant the host mum had waiting for her.

“Coffee as well?” Her hostess asked. “It’s in a to-go cup.”

Mirta accepted that gratefully and went to pick up the brown paper bag of snacks Flora had left in the fridge for her. She peeked inside to see all the treats neatly packaged as well as the little handwritten note with a heart on it. Can’t wait to hold you again tonight, it said, I’ll miss you.

“It’s so nice that you two get on like this,” her hostess said with a smile, dragging Mirta back into the real world. “You’re very lucky to have a friend like her.”

“Yeah,” Mirta agreed as she hastily closed the bag and put the snacks in her rucksack. “I’m so glad I have a friend like Flora.”


	2. Magix is Burning Part 1: Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has referenced sexual context (with Riven, who is 17 here), as well as referenced murder. Please curate your internet experience according to your tastes.

The single bed was far less cramped now that Miles had got up to finish packing. Riven stretched out, putting his hands behind his head and watched the other boy as he shoved things in bags, muttering under his breath. Miles was stressed, trying not to forget any of his belongings while simultaneously going over the briefing he’d been given for his new job.

Riven supposed that this wasn’t the graduation that Miles had been expecting. Then again, it hadn’t been the year anyone had been expecting.

Miles bent over to pick up his jeans from the floor and checked the pockets for his wallet and shuttle ticket. He was fussing. Riven could recognise his flustered face easily now and he knew it was because of the draconian customs rules that were still in place after the Trix’s rampage.

He’d had that expression after the first time that Riven had kissed him, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. There had been a moment of shocked silence, their faces barely an inch apart, before Miles had kissed him again. They had locked together, pressing up close, for a long time until they had heard someone open a door somewhere down the corridor. Riven had only done it to shut him up... well, mostly. He’d also done it because he had wanted to know what it would feel like after all the times Miles had blown kisses at him.

That wasn’t the only time they had made out. It kept happening whenever they were alone, and then at some point kissing had turned into giving Miles head. Riven still wasn’t sure how exactly that had happened. Only that one minute he had had his tongue in Miles’s mouth, and the next he had had his tongue on Miles’s cock. Miles hadn’t stopped him, and even indulged Riven’s gesticulated demands for his hair to be pulled and his head to be pushed down. Those requests had been the most they’d ever communicated about it.

Riven sat up on the bed and Miles paused his frantic fussing to look at him. 

“You put your wallet in your satchel,” he said, pointing to the bag at the foot of the bed.

“And you didn’t say anything sooner because…?” He asked and Riven just shrugged; it wasn’t his job to keep Miles organised. “Because you just felt like being an asshole? Right, okay.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Riven picked up his own clothes so that he could get dressed too. He knew he was being a dick, but he was walking the guy to the shuttle and that was about as much decency as Riven could muster.

He pulled his shirt over his head only to see Miles grinning at him when his vision was clear again.

“What?”

“You still have cum on your face.” 

Riven flinched a little as Miles wiped it off his cheek with a thumb, frowning angrily at the touch. Sex was one thing; sucking on another guy’s dick while jerking off was completely different to gentle touches and strokes on the cheek. He didn’t know where to look when Miles made contact like this. The affection was… unwanted.

Riven brushed his hand away and he pretended that he couldn’t see Miles’ disappointed face. It wasn’t like they were in an actual relationship, they were barely even fuck buddies. So Riven didn’t understand why he was always so crushed by the callousness.

“We need to leave soon if you’re gonna make it on time, right?” He said before Miles could bring up Riven’s obvious dislike of affection again.

“Yeah, hang on a moment.” Miles hastily finished getting dressed and grabbed his bags. Most of his stuff had already been sent ahead so there was only a satchel and two gym bags to carry to the shuttle terminal. Riven carried both of the gym bags in case Miles got any ideas about trying to hold hands.

It was a half hour walk from where they were staying to the terminal. Normally, it was the kind of journey they would have made on the bus or in a taxi, but public transport was no longer running due to hazardous driving conditions brought about by the sheer amount of rubble and debris that had yet to be cleared, and the taxi services had been co-opted by the government for all the important business that the new council needed to do. So they were walking the whole way to the shuttle terminal. The city was healing after the Army of Decay’s invasion but it was slow going. Even months after most people were heavily relying on aid packages dropped from the orbiting blockade.

They walked in silence through the ruined streets, sometimes picking through shattered glass and shards of concrete. Magix looked more like the back end of Zenith where Riven had grown up than the so-called centre of the magical universe.

Eventually they fell in behind a couple, a man and a woman, who were walking slowly enough that Miles huffed and his face soured. Riven was less bothered by their reduced pace than by how sickeningly sweet the couple in front were being with each other. Touches and kisses and all the things he was only okay with during sex were being exchanged publically, and the fact of how much he actually wanted to do that with Miles made him want to die.

It wasn’t fair that he was so repulsed by something he craved. Riven turned his eyes to the demolished shops that they were passing rather than looking at the affectionate couple in front, or Miles to his right. Some things were best just not thought about.

They queued up in the terminal, waiting until the right shuttle was called so that Miles could go through customs and be on his way. Riven didn’t feel like talking, and Miles could tell. So instead they just watched the news on the TVs in the waiting room. The audio couldn’t be made out over the noise of everyone milling about and passing through so Riven just read the subtitles.

The main story was the rebuilding of the city. The two anchors discussed which businesses were reopening as well as the bouts of unrest that were springing up in reaction to some unpopular decision made by city hall. There would be an election cycle starting in a few months but the people were already making their displeasure known.

None of it was particularly riveting, nevertheless Riven pretended to be fascinated by it so that he could avoid actually talking to Miles. He was going to miss having him around, but he had absolutely no way of expressing that.

The male anchor introduced the next story and all of a sudden Riven no longer had to feign interest.

A body had been found dumped behind an abandoned shop late last night. The police weren’t releasing much information, just that it was thought to be a mugging gone wrong and that the time of death was somewhere around midnight the previous night. There weren’t any pictures shown - the police had been able to close off the crime scene promptly, so there wasn’t much for the news to fixated on. The anchors moved on once more and Riven was left thinking.

The crimescene wasn’t that far from where he was staying, it was entirely possible that he’d been awake and nearby when the murder happened. His sweet old landlady was going to be distraught at the news. He’d been enjoying being able to leave via the fire escape whenever he felt like it, and she might quite reasonably ask him to stop doing that.

The likelihood of the perpetrator getting caught was low; many of the city’s police had been killed by the Army of Decay and those that were left were stretched thin. Magix PD had help from the Solarian and Eraklyon occupying forces but they were here to keep the peace, not solve crimes. He couldn’t imagine having foreign soldiers prowling around interrogating people would help the unrest.

Honestly, if Riven had wanted to murder anyone, now would be an excellent time.

“That’s my shuttle.” He was startled out of his consideration of homicide by Miles standing up and putting his hand out for his luggage.

“Oh, right.” 

There was a knot in Riven’s stomach as he handed over the bags he’d been carrying. He purposefully hadn’t been thinking about this moment and now that it was here he didn’t know how to describe what he felt. Just… uncomfortable and unhappy.

Riven’s fingers hesitated over Miles’ hand as the bags were exchanged. He was starting to wish that he had let Miles be affectionate on the way over, maybe that way he wouldn’t feel so empty now.

He must have let some of that show on his face because Miles reached out to cup his cheek with a small smile. Riven let him kiss him. Even now, when he was desperate for Miles not to go, he felt self-conscious kissing another guy. He was torn. He wanted Miles to know how grateful he was for how patient and non-judgmental the older boy had been with him, but there was still fear. A big part of Riven’s mind was convinced that they’d pull away and he’d see someone from his hometown watching, ready to tell his father.

Miles pulled away but kept his hand on Riven’s cheek.

“I know this wasn’t anything serious,” he said, his thumb rubbing over the slight stubble. “But I am going to miss you. I don’t know if I helped at all with your figuring things out, but I hope you manage it.”

Miles kissed him again, and this time Riven let go a little bit. He put an arm around him to hold them closer together as if that would stop him leaving. It was a shuttle terminal, he rationalised, everybody was saying goodbye to friends, partners, and loved ones. The two of them kissing wasn’t strange and no one would care. He hoped.

“I need to get going,” Miles said apologetically when they separated.

“Yeah, of course.” Riven let him go and watched him move towards the right line, his heart beat faster as he called out after him. “You did, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“Help. You helped a lot. I’ll miss you too.”

Riven thought about how weak that had sounded as he wandered aimlessly out of the shuttle terminal. He was glad that Miles had been in a hurry or he might have died of embarrassment. What had he been thinking, saying something like that? But he did also think a lot about the smile on Miles’ face after he said it.

He was at a loss for what to do now. He didn’t feel like going back to his room, and he wasn’t needed for cleanup duty. The pay for helping out the city while being forced to stay on planet was pretty good all things considered, even if the work was monotonous. None of his friends were still here wither. Well Timmy was, but he was all the way across the planet fretting about Tecna’s facial reconstruction surgery, and Riven didn’t feel like travelling for a full day just to watch him have a guilt-induced nervous breakdown.

So instead he loitered about the city and tried to find out as much as he could about the murder from the news. Fixating on death was preferable to thinking about Miles.

There was more information on a few online news outlets; the victim had been identified as a local man, Rusty Solis, and it was theorised that he had been coming home from his job as a courier when he was attacked. Riven scrolled through several pages before he found out the cause of death. Magix had some weird laws that mandated that any deaths had to be announced within forty-eight hours of discovery. Not just that, but also the cause of death too. It meant nonsensical obituaries and corrections to previous obituaries pervaded every news organisation.

In this case it had been a stabbing. Quite an extreme one at that. twenty-seven wounds in his chest. Riven grimaced at the mental image that phrase created. And all of this over the guy’s wallet. 

He didn’t know why he was going down this rabbit hole. It wasn’t like it was even a good distraction from pining over Miles, and he couldn’t exactly do anything about it now. So he was just inflicting violent imagery on himself and still failing to distract from how alone he was feeling. And it didn’t help that Miles had been his distraction from Darcy. 

That relationship was definitely over. They had never ‘officially’ broken up, but it probably wasn’t possible to come back from shooting her out of the sky with an arrow. Despite that though, he still felt the urge to visit her at Light Rock. It was a terrible idea. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where that would work out well, and yet he desperately wanted to know that she was okay.

Riven put his phone away and kept wandering, although this time with a bit more purpose. What he really wanted was a drink. Probably something stronger than beer too. He wanted to get drunk enough that he couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone contemplate Miles or Darcy. It was getting to the early evening, so it was moderately acceptable to start getting wasted now. 

Ideally, he’d scratch this itch by visiting an off license with the ID that said he was twenty and buying a bottle of something clear and foul tasting to take back to his room for the evening. But he was staying in the spare room of a lovely old lady and Riven baulked at the idea of possibly getting her in trouble for his underage drinking. She kept making him meals and telling him how much she liked having him around now that her kids had left. 

That and drinking alone in his room sounded a lot like something his father would do.

No, instead he was going to see if any of the bars that had reopened took his fancy. It was past six o’clock which meant they’d be opening soon and he'd be able to get hammered; so he did a circuit around the four clubs that he knew were still operating. 

The Mixing House would have been his first choice; it was reasonably close to his housing for stumbling-to-bed purposes, but when he approached he could already see some of the Cloud Tower seniors through the window and he turned on his heel to walk away before any of them caught a glimpse of him. 

There was Bounce, which was filled with so many of his peers that there was no way the bartender would be giving out drinks to anyone who looked remotely under twenty, regardless of IDs. The next option was Jack’s, but that was filled with the older crowd and definitely would have off-duty cops in it. And finally there was that dive bar. It had changed its name several times as it exchanged owners and Riven wasn’t really sure what it was called now, just that he would definitely be offered crack if he went in there.

Those were his options, and he kept walking as he considered each of them. None of them were particularly appealing, and he was debating just going home to just jerk off and watch shitty tv when a sign further down the street caught his eye.

‘Come in!’ The arrow shaped sign said in glittered green writing and ‘We were open in the riots, we’re open now!’ underneath in smaller writing

Riven walked towards where it was pointing and saw that, tucked away just around the alley was a door painted in the same green glitter as the sign, propped open by a pile of bricks. Above it were the words ‘Happy Bar’. He only vaguely knew about the riots in the city from fifteen years ago so he didn’t get the reference, but it was a bar and it was open.

He approached the open door and made eye contact with the bouncer waiting just inside. The man was large. He looked like he might be able to last a few rounds with Haikman in a fight, but he smiled as Riven reached him.

“ID?” The bouncer asked and Riven handed it over. “Do you need a visitor’s badge?”

“‘A visitor’s badge?’” For a moment he thought that he’d been busted and he was about to lose an expensive piece of forgery, but then the bouncer handed him the ID back and laughed.

“If you’re straight you have to wear a visitor’s badge.” 

Oh. This was a gay bar. Riven was taken aback but surprisingly not put off from entering. He shook his head.

“No, I won’t be needing one. I’m not straight.”

That was the first time he’s said that out loud. Possibly even the first time he’d consciously thought it. And the first person who’d heard him say it was a bouncer at a gay bar that he’d never been to before.

Fuck. What was happening to him?


	3. Magix is Burning Part 2: Orange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to gay culture on Magix!

Riven stood frozen to the spot, unable to comprehend that he’d just admitted such a secret to a complete stranger. The bouncer however, had no context for how much of a big deal that confession was.

“Cool.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of little pink laminated slips. “We’re having to ration the alcohol, so everyone gets four of these. Feel free to swap ‘em or trade ‘em or whatever, we don’t care about that, but you do still have to pay for the drinks like normal. Just got to make sure we don’t run out halfway through a performance.”

Performance? Riven thought that he really should leave. He had no idea what he was getting into and he had a strong urge to turn around and run, but his body carried him inside. There was booze inside and after he’d run his big stupid mouth he needed to drink.

Happy was dimly lit and oddly shaped like an ‘L’ due to it being on the corner of the building. The bar was down the inside wall with booths opposite and some sort of stage was set up on the other branch. Riven took a seat on one of the stools at the bar and presented the bartender with one of his pink slips and his debit card in exchange for a whiskey double.

He felt very exposed sitting there and he hunched over his drink, trying to disappear into the bar. There were a few people in already and he desperately wanted to avoid garnering any attention. A lot of guys here were still in uniforms or business dress having come straight from work. They looked so innocuously normal despite being here. It unnerved Riven to think that so many of the people he came across on the street were gay and he just couldn’t tell.

And then there was the one man at the other end of the bar who was very clearly a junkie. Even if he hadn’t been as thin as a rake and his track marks hadn’t been visible, Riven would have known from his shakes. At least the guy was eating something even if he couldn’t vouch for the nutritional value of mozzarella sticks.

Riven went back to minding his own fucking business. This had been a stupid idea. His back up plan of tv and masturbation seemed like a much better way to spend the evening than drinking in an unknown place far away from his room. He might not even be able to get drunk enough to achieve his goal anyway.

“Yo.” Riven looked up, startled, to see a boy, not much older than him sliding onto the stool to his right. He was skinny enough that Riven was sure he could lift and throw him with ease, with dyed pink hair and a t-shirt that glowed bright white under the UV lights of the bar.

“Hey,” Riven grunted in reply, hoping that his clear lack of enthusiasm would make this guy fuck off. His new company however was either oblivious or deliberately ignoring his attitude.

“I’m Felix,” he said, smiling despite Riven’s scowl. “I thought you might not want to be alone.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Because you’re drinking alone on a Wednesday evening and your face looks like you’re wearing a g-string made from thorns.”

“I… what?” Felix’s choice of words and the grin on his face had thrown Riven completely. Felix laughed.

“You look a bit grumpy, that’s all.”

“I’ve never been to a gay bar before.”

“Do you need a…?”

“No, I do not need a visitor’s pass,” Riven snapped, immediately regretting his tone when Felix’s face fell. This guy had the charm of Brandon and the kicked-puppy expression of Timmy, all of which made it hard to be his usual abrasive self. Besides, Riven wasn’t sure that he didn’t want to keep talking; Felix was making him feel just a little less lonely. Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Sorry, I…”

“No, I’m sorry,” Riven said. Inwardly sighing at himself for being suckered in like this. “It’s just… I’m not…”

“Out yet?” Felix finished for him so that he didn’t have to keep struggling with the words. Riven just nodded and took a sip of his drink so that he didn’t have to make eye contact. “Dude, it’s okay. Everyone here knows what that feels like.”

“Hmm.” Riven was certain that the specifics of his circumstance weren’t matched by anyone on the planet, let alone anyone in this bar.

“Hey, I’m gonna leave you alone now,” Felix said, getting up and Riven wanted to scream; he’d only just adjusted to this guy being here. “But if you decide you want company my friends are over there in that booth and we’d all welcome you. Definitely would dissuade Mac from trying to solicit you.”

Felix gestured to the junkie down the bar. It made sense for him to be a hooker. A way to make money for a fix if you were avoiding dealing with schedules and bosses. Back home, Caitlin had barely moved off their couch since she’d realised she could fuck clients right there and only have to walk ten feet to buy heroin after.

“Plus,” Felix added as he stepped away, “Dorian doesn’t really drink so if you’re nice he might give you one of his slips.” He winked and left Riven alone finally.

Riven watched as his new acquaintance walked back to his group of friends. All of them looked so comfortable, so relaxed, like this was just an ordinary evening for them and they had nothing to be ashamed about. He envied them greatly and gripped his glass hard. He should just leave and forget about all of this. Riven started to get up and then stopped.

What was he doing? Sure, his current situation wasn’t making him happy but he was starting to think that he had no idea what did make him happy. What the hell, maybe he’d get another drink out of this. He knocked back what was left of the whiskey and made his way over to Felix and his friends, hands firmly thrust in pockets to disguise his clenched fists.

“Hey,” he said gruffly, standing close to Felix as if that would somehow protect him from making a fool of himself. 

There were four other guys besides his new friend: a scruffy looking man in his late twenties, still in office attire although it was rumpled; a slight young man with long black hair and a full beard; a construction worker with sandy blonde hair and tattooed arms; and then there was a chubby red-head with a can of lemonade in front of him that Riven guessed was Dorian. 

“I, er, would like to avoid being solicited.” He jerked his thumb back to the bar where Mac was making headway with his bar food.

“Damn Felix,” blondie said as they shuffled up so that Riven could sit. “Where do you find these guys?” He tensed as he took a seat, there was something not wholly innocent in the way the construction worker looked at him. It was half flattering and half unsettling to have someone refer to him like that.

“Oh leave off,” Felix said as he moved onto the office worker’s lap, wrapping his arms around the non reciprocating man’s neck only to be carefully untangled and deposited on the other side of him. “It’s not like that. He… sorry, I never asked your name.”

“Riven.”

“Riven isn’t properly out yet, so be nice.”

The mood palpably changed and if there had been any doubt that he was being scrutinised by these guys before, he certainly was now. Riven shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, good to meet you,” blondie said. “I’m Luka. You’ve met Jailbait, and the guy Felix will be sending to prison if he’s not careful is Stephen. This guy’s Dorian and in the corner is Helia.”

Riven nodded at them all. Luka was certainly the most personable, his legs were stretched out under the booth into Riven’s space and he didn’t seem to mind that the two of them were making contact at the ankles. Helia however, was surveying him sharply.

“You’re from Red Fountain, right?” Stephen asked, ignoring Felix’s renewed efforts to cuddle up to him.

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“I could tell from the posture. They really drill it into you at that school.”

“Phrasing?” Felix laughed, running a hand through Stephen’s hair and succeeding in making him laugh.

“And how old are you really?” Riven met Helia’s eye directly, there was no way that the other guy could prove that he was underage, but at least this explained the staring.

“Twenty,” he replied calmly. He’d even memorised the day and month of his fake birthday to make sure he didn’t miss ‘becoming’ twenty-one.

“Well that’s an obvious lie.”

“Oh?”

“If you were that old you would have been at Red Fountain when I was there, and I don’t remember you.”

Riven sucked his teeth as Luka burst out laughing and set a hand on Helia’s knee. Although Helia was still surveying Riven closely, he seemed less intense now. Luka turned from his friend to address Riven.

“If it helps, I’m also not old enough and neither is Felix although the bar knows about him.” He shrugged. “But that’s because his uncles run the place. As far as they know I’m twenty and not eighteen.”

“And how old is Felix?” Riven couldn’t be younger than him, did that kid even need to shave?

“I’m nineteen,” Felix said and cuddled Stephen again. “So almost guilt free.”

“I’m going to get another round,” Dorian declared. “Felix, leave him alone and help me carry the drinks.”

The three in the booth watched them go, Luka leaning back in his seat and propping his feet up on the bench next to Riven’s knee. It was a small gesture that was clearly testing how receptive Riven was. And the answer to that was… that he didn’t know? After just kind of existing close to Miles, he didn’t know how to react to this.

“So,” he said carefully, ignoring Luka’s encroachment on his personal space. “What’s up with him?” He jerked his thumb at Felix and Stephen sighed.

“I’m too old for him so I’m kind of hoping that he’ll get bored in a month or so and move on.”

“Not that you’re doing a particularly good job of dissuading him,” Luka pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you know how impossible it is to say ‘no’ to him. And I was never very good at outright rejecting people anyway…” Stephen trailed off and then looked back at Riven. “You’re drinking, right? I thought you Red Fountain boys were serious about your diets and shit.”

“Hmm,” Riven grunted. “I don’t make a habit of drinking.” Not in term time, anyway.

“Really?” Luka was grinning at him. He was definitely interested, Riven was maybe ninety per cent sure.

“Really,” he nodded. “I only drink when I want to get laid.” The other two laughed, Helia’s serious face breaking finally, but Luka fixed him with an intense stare.

“Are you that confident that you’ll take someone home?”

“Eh,” Riven shrugged and narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I’ll just jerk off vigorously instead.” Luka smiled at him while Stephen snorted. He was sure that if he did want to take someone home, Luka wouldn’t be too hard to persuade.

The others were prevented from passing comment on his masturbatory habits by Dorian and Felix returning with drinks. Luka slid around the booth so that there was a wall between Stephen and his admirer. Dorian had picked the same offensively brightly coloured cocktail for all of them, but Riven wasn’t going to be fussy about free drinks.

“Did we work out how old you were?” Felix asked as he sat next to Riven.

“I’m seventeen,” he said and watched as Helia grimaced. “I do know you though, don’t I? You’re Saladin’s grandkid.” Helia’s left eye twitched a little.

“He’s my great-uncle, but yeah.”

“Why did you leave?” Riven asked, taking his first sip of his new drink and almost skewering himself in the eye with the decorative umbrella. “Codatorta only had good things to say about you.”

“Hmm, how to describe it…” Helia tapped his chin and looked into the distance. “I spent a lot of my early teen years wrestling with who I was and playing pretend with some strange concepts of masculinity. I felt that I needed to be there to prove my male-ness, but as I grew up I realised that wanting to go to art college rather than spend my life punching things didn’t make me any less of a man.”

Riven was sure that he was missing some context in what Helia was saying from his expression and the tone in his voice. Luka shared a look with Stephen that definitely meant something, but he decided against asking; if Helia felt like sharing, he’d do so.

What Riven was more interested in was how the older guy had dealt with being queer at Red Fountain. He’d asked Miles about it in a roundabout way after that time Brandon had walked in on them, but he had never got a real answer. Miles just ‘was’ and if that bothered people that was their problem; not something Riven could emulate. 

Like most of Magix, the school was fairly liberal and certainly viewed men being with men in a much more positive light than his neighbourhood on Zenith. But Red Fountain was a military school, and once word of him and Miles got round all of a sudden his peers were weird whenever he was in the shower block with them. He could have handled it if any of them had said something about it to his face, Riven was no stranger to throwing fists to correct a person, but it was all passive and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

He wanted to ask Helia so many questions, but he couldn’t form the right words and instead Felix cut in again.

“Are you from Zenith, Riven?” He asked, stretching across the booth to slide his hand into Riven’s hair. That was normally a gesture he absolutely would not allow, but Stephen was right; saying ‘no’ to Felix made him feel like a monster.

“Yeah,” he said, and then paused. “But I’m only half Raissuic.”

“So you get the hair from one parent, huh?” Felix gave his head another ruffle before pulling away. “I wish I had your hair; would save me having to dye it all the time.”

“Why do you want purple hair?” 

“Because it looks so cool!” Felix slumped back in his seat. “Do you not like it?”

Riven paused before he answered. He wasn’t sure of his feelings regarding his hair. It made him very visible both at school and in his home neighbourhood, and it certainly was a stark reminder of his mother, but it was also a part of him.

“I dunno, it’s just me.”

Riven wasn’t exactly at ease around these guys, but he kept drinking with them and suddenly it was eleven o’clock at night and Stephen was talking about getting home in time for a full night’s sleep before work the next day. 

With a seat empty, it wasn’t long before they had someone else coming over to join them. He was a short guy with dark, curly hair and a smile that reminded him of Brandon. He was introduced as Mark, a friend of Dorian’s, and he was here to do stand-up at midnight. Riven could believe that; the guy was funny in their conversation and then funny again when he was at the mic.

They had another round after Mark’s set and then Dorian dragged Felix out to walk him home, leaving Riven with Luka.

They were sitting opposite each other once again, and there was nowhere for Riven to look but at Luka. The other boy was in good shape, but not like anyone from Red Fountain; he was muscled from manual labour rather than constant drills, and that was something Riven found surprisingly attractive. He had an intense stare too, one that never wavered.

“You need to get back?” Riven asked after clearing his throat.

“Yeah, I do have work in the morning.” Luka smiled, looking sheepish as he stood up. “Want me to walk you home?”

That had to be a loaded question… right? Riven wasn’t that drunk and it wasn’t like he couldn’t handle a walk right now. So, what he really should be considering was whether he wanted Luka to know where he lived and if he wanted to let Luka in.

“I’m pretty sure I can find my way back but I’ll take you just in case.” There was a knot forming in his stomach as they both left the bar. Thank god he was staying at a house far away from any of his classmates, the idea of any of them knowing he’d been to a gay bar or that there was a guy walking him home made him nauseous.

Luka conversely, looked totally relaxed as they made their way through the streets. It wasn’t late enough that the other pubs and clubs were throwing people out yet and Riven walked strategically in the shadows when they passed The Mixing House. Luka looked at him in confusion and then saw the students partying there.

“So how long have you known?”

“Huh?”

“That you’re gay.” Luka stretched his arms behind his head casually, but Riven knew that he was waiting for the answer.

“I’m not,” he said bluntly. That was a step too far. Riven was still working out a lot but he knew that he still liked girls. The secret hard drive under his bed proved that. “I’m just not straight.”

“I see.” Luka said, nodding slightly. “So you’re bi, or pan, or omni or something.”

“That’s a lot of labels.” Riven was struggling to process what it was he liked about guys to begin with without adding in anything else.

“Ah, maybe but language is important. The straights didn’t give us any words to describe ourselves but slurs so we’ve sort of had to come up with our own…” Luka trailed off. “No rush though. Not everyone knows right away.”

“Hmm.” Riven didn’t know what to say to that. He had little to no knowledge of this side of… of not being straight, and it felt like he was missing out on rather a lot of context.

“Have you dated girls?”

“Yes.”

“And you found that to be a good experience?”

Riven must have been drunker than he thought because he couldn’t stop himself from bursting out laughing. It had been so nice to be around people who didn’t know that his ex-girlfriend had tried to enslave the planet, but now Luka was staring at him in a way that made him feel the need to explain.

“You wanna see a picture of my last girlfriend?” He asked, still laughing. “Come look at the bitch I lost my virginity to.”

He propped himself up on a wall and opened his phone to scroll through his pictures as Luka hovered tentatively over his shoulder. Riven considered he was probably torching any chance he had of getting laid with this, but he couldn’t resist. Laughing about this was a vast improvement over sulking in shame.

The photo of him and Darcy, the one that had been his background for so long, was further back that he remembered but he pulled it up and made sure that Luka could get a good look. His new friend frowned for a moment as he comprehended exactly what he was seeing, and then…

“Holy shit! Is that who I think it is?”

“Yep,” Riven laughed. “We didn’t so much break up as she locked me in a dungeon and then I shot her with an arrow.” 

He watched as an array of emotions ran over Luka’s face. Despite how he was talking about her, Riven felt a pang in his chest. He wanted Darcy to be okay, he wanted her to be safe and well and he wanted to take back the wound he had punctured in her back.

“You know,” Luka said thoughtfully. “You’re more well-adjusted about this than you ought to be.”

“I’m ‘well-adjusted’?” He’d been called many things in his life, arsehole plenty, delinquent frequently, but never well-adjusted.

“You came out tonight to explore stuff about yourself with an open mind,” he explained. “You let yourself have fun and you didn’t shut out new people. I’ve only just met you but I’m kinda proud.”

Riven pushed off from the wall to start walking again and stared at Luka incredulously.

“Are you always so disgustingly in touch with your emotions?” Riven asked. He felt like he was being dissected and that made him want to hide behind a lamppost or something.

“Ha!” Luka laughed and followed Riven towards his place. “Sorry, I need to stop doing that. My parents divorced when I was kid and my mum made me go to therapy after for like, six years.”

“Did it make a difference?” Riven snorted. He had his father’s opinion on therapy, which was that it was for depressed rich women and small-dicked men.

“Well, my mum's still a bitch and my dad’s still shacking up with a new woman each week, but I can talk about it just fine now.” Luka reached out and Riven found himself with an arm around his shoulders. “But I’d rather not talk about my parents right now, it’s not good for setting the mood.”

Maybe it was because it was dark, or maybe it was because he was drunk, but Riven suddenly found that he didn’t care that he was out in public like this with another guy. He slipped his arm around Luka’s back and pushed his head under the other guy’s jaw. If he had been brave, he would have tried to kiss him, but Riven wasn’t drunk enough to be that confident.

Instead they stumbled on until they had to separate to pass through a crowd of clubbers that were herding the opposite way. Luka pushed his way through the mass of drunks, grabbing hold of Riven’s hand and pulled him along. Luka was warm and his grip so self-assured. Riven wasn’t sure if it was his body or his attitude that he found the most appealing. Whatever he was feeling, it scared him but he was going to go along with it anyway.

They reached the house were Riven was staying before the streetlights went out for the night. They stopped by the fire escape to his room and they stood together next to the first step in silence for a moment. Luka took Riven’s other hand softly.

“So, um,” he said, turning Riven’s hands over to look at his palms. “Would it be okay if I came in for some coffee?”

“I’m not sure my host would appreciate us using the kitchen at this hour, or that we actually have any coffee, but I can blow you instead if you want.” He assumed this was actually what Luka meant, rather than wanting any caffeine past midnight.

Luka burst out laughing and dropped Riven’s hands to rub his chin.

“You know,” he said, still smiling. “I wasn’t totally convinced that you were from Zenith but I guess this clears it up.”

Riven frowned. This felt like he was being made fun of and it annoyed him. Luka must have sensed this because he took a step forward and all of a sudden they were kissing. Riven could feel a hand on his back and a hand on his cheek as Luka held them together.

There was a sudden release of anxiety and the knot in Riven’s stomach relaxed. He suddenly didn’t care if anyone saw him right now, he wanted to be as close as possible to Luka and he gripped the back of his shirt so tightly his knuckles went white. Riven had a lot he wanted to express and the only way he knew how to show it was like this.

Eventually Luka pulled away, but kept his arms around Riven. The eye contact was intense but it was impossible to look away. 

“Are you going to come in?” Riven prompted when neither of them moved for a long time. He was hard now and he wanted to do something about it, preferably with Luka. 

“Yeah…” he breathed. “I just wanna... I’m not interested in a relationship right now. Thought that I should make that clear.”

“I’m not sure what part of ‘I shot my last girlfriend in the back’ makes you think I want another one either.”

Luka smiled at him, wetting his lips again.

“Okay, let’s go.”


	4. Magix is Burning Part 3: Yellow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Have a big old content warning!  
> This chapter is sexually explicit, like, the whole thing. This is the 'sexual exploration' part of this fic, and Riven is still a couple of months off from being 18. If that's going to upset you please skip this chapter.

Riven crept up the fire escape and opened the door to his room as quietly as he could. There was a sweet old lady down the hall and he didn’t want her to be disturbed, or worse, feel the need to check on him while he had a dick in his mouth. Thankfully Luka followed his lead and trod carefully.

He was barely able to close his door before he was being kissed again, hot breath on his face. Riven felt hands working his belt off and he froze as fingers pushed past his waistband. Luka must have felt that because he stopped kissing him and withdrew his touch.

“Is everything okay?” He asked. Riven looked back at him, neither of them had turned the light on yet so it was difficult to make out the other guy’s expression in the gloom. The shape of Luka’s face was silhouetted against the light of the lampposts coming through the window and his breathing was heavy. Riven could tell that he was hard, through both pairs of jeans and briefs separating them.

How much did he trust this person, someone he’d only just met?

“Yeah,” Riven said slowly. “Just… just be rough with me.”

The nervousness was back. The fear that all of a sudden Luka would be disgusted with him, see him as less of a man. Riven hated how he wanted to feel used with all of his being. He never would have asked for this so explicitly if he wasn’t drunk right now.

There was no change in Luka’s demeanour though, the only change was that his hands started moving again. Riven’s voice hitched as Luka’s hand returned and a thumb ran over the tip of his erection. Their bodies lingered pressed together for a moment before Luka pulled away, his hands leaving Riven’s underwear.

“I’ll be rough,” he said. “But you have to tell me as soon as you don’t like it.”

Riven nodded. That was about the same reaction that Miles had had when he’d been asked not to be so gentle. There was a pang of disappointment; this was most likely a one night stand and there wouldn’t be much time to get across exactly what he meant by ‘rough’.

And then Luka was taking off his own clothes, opening the front of his jeans and pulling his vest over his head to drop it on the floor.

“Get on your knees,” he said. His voice was calm but there was something compelling about his tone that made Riven obey eagerly.

The floor was cold through his jeans but he didn’t have much time to consider that before Luka was pulling down the front of his underwear and Riven had to come to terms with what he’d offered to do back by the fire escape. He couldn’t see Luka’s cock but Riven knew what he was supposed to do in this situation. Tentatively, he pressed his lips to the head, a drop of precum salty on his tongue.

But Luka wasn’t having any of his sudden shyness. His hands gripped Riven’s head and Riven had just enough time to open his mouth wide before he was forced down, suddenly cutting off his air and making him choke. His throat was full and his eyes watered as a tight fist in his hair was used to move his mouth up and down the hot shaft. It seemed that Luka had taken him seriously.

It was almost impossible to catch his breath as his mouth was used. Luka rasped appreciatively above him as he moved Riven’s head up and down. The noises made Riven’s dick twitch in his jeans, and he reached into his own pants to jerk off to the rhythm of Luka fucking his face. This whole situation… Riven hadn’t known that he’d wanted this. The carelessness with which he was being treated, how much Luka was enjoying this, the spontaneity of it all; once he came and sobered up this was exactly the kind of thing that he was going to be bitterly ashamed of.

Luka pushed him down, further than he’d managed before, knocking the back of Riven’s head with an open palm to force his cock as far in as it would go. Riven gagged again, struggling to pull away so that he could inhale air. He took one breath before he was thrust back down and his throat was being fucked again.

And then he heard a gasp and his mouth was empty.

Hot liquid spattered across his face and Luka sank backwards onto the bed with a sigh of relief. Awkwardly, because staying in one position on the hard floor for so long made his knees stiff, Riven got up to join him on the sheets. Cum was still tickling down his face and he wiped his forehead to keep it from dripping into his eyes.

Luka leant over, gently pulling at Riven’s jeans as his head went down towards Riven’s lap. Riven had a flash of sudden panic and pushed him away. He had very clear visions of Darcy and her mind games whenever he contemplated being on the receiving end of a blowjob. Luka looked up at him, confused.

“I don’t want you to.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Riven was stumped. He’d never been in this position before. All the times with Miles had involved him making himself cum around the same time as Miles had, so he’d never been asked a question like this. He figured his sudden stamina was probably to do with all the alcohol.

“Er…” He didn’t want to leave things here, he was too aroused to want to kick Luka out or just go to bed.

“Handjob?” Luka suggested. Riven paused, his hands still guarding his crotch. Aside from some light groping, he’d managed to keep his privates to himself over the last two months so he was reluctant to let anyone else touch him but he also was desperate to cum.

“Yeah…”

“Do you still want me to be rough with you?”

“Yes.” Riven had long since given up hoping that that part of him would suddenly change.

Luka pressed his lips to Riven’s in a surprisingly chaste kiss considering what they’d just been doing. He relaxed as Luka stroked the back of his head.

And then Riven found himself flipped face down into the mattress. It was a move straight out of his grappling drills, one that never would have caught him off guard if he’d been sober. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees only for Luka to be on top of him, putting him in a headlock as his other hand wrapped around the base of Riven’s cock.

This was very different to doing it himself. He squirmed and gasped as Luka jerked his hand up and down. Had he wanted to, Riven could almost certainly have broken the hold around his neck, but he didn’t want to. Luka’s teeth brushed the back of his neck and he gasped into the sheets. He was being marked, could feel the bruises blooming over the skin there, and that pushed him over the edge.

Riven was glad that his face was pressed down into the mattress because it took him by surprise and the sheets muffled the cry he made as he came into Luka’s hand.

He was released from his headlock and collapsed down. He’d managed to get some on the bed too so he ended up lying in a wet patch. That was something Sober Morning Riven could deal with though because now he was incredibly tired. He barely had the energy to kick his legs free of his trousers and underwear.

Somewhere across the room, Luka was wiping off his hand and humming slightly to himself. Riven stayed where he was, curled up and facing away into the corner, unsure of what he was supposed to do now. He wasn’t well-versed in hook-up etiquette. When he’d been messing around with Miles it had usually been during the day and as soon as they were done they’d always just got on with what they’d been doing beforehand.

He tensed as Luka sat back down behind him.

“I guess you really do like being manhandled, huh?” He laughed quietly and Riven felt that nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach again. He didn’t say anything back in case opening his mouth caused him to actually be sick. Being drunk really didn’t help. He absolutely did not want to discuss anything right now, especially how he liked to be treated during sex.

Luka lay down too, close enough that Riven could feel breath on the back of his neck but he didn’t reach out to touch him and Riven was grateful for that.

“So, er,” Luka said quietly. “Do I have to leave now?”

There was something in his voice that sounded vulnerable to Riven and that surprised him. After what Luka had been doing to him, he hadn’t expected him not to stay so domineering. It no longer felt like he was being looked down on, or that Luka didn’t see him as a real man. It felt like they were just two guys who’d been fooling around Luka was just as unsure of himself as Riven was.

Which was why he answered; “Stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love it this chapter? Hate it? Completely ambivalent towards it? Come tell me on tumblr @everythingpuddle


	5. Magix is Burning Part 4: Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some talk about murder in this chapter, but nothing graphic.

The first thing that Riven noticed when he woke up was that he was sticky. Sticky and crusty. The second thing he noticed was that Luka was no longer next to him. Through his sleepy and mildly hungover haze, Riven lifted his head to see what was happening more clearly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up yet,” Luka said softly, fiddling with his belt as he got dressed. “I’ve got work in an hour and I should probably shower and change before showing up.”

“Yeah… no worries.” Riven slumped his head back into the pillow. He needed water and he needed sleep. The bed felt cold and empty now after a night of having a second body to warm it but it was too early for that to have an effect on his fatigue.

Luka fished around in the dark for his shoes and the rest of his clothes as Riven drifted back in and out of sleep. At some point the alarm for his own work would go off and he wanted to throw off as much of his hangover as he could before he had to show up for manual labour. His summer job was so straightforward that a monkey could do it, but he did need to be present for it at least.

“Hey, so,” Luka said, sitting back down and placing a hand on Riven’s shoulder. “There’s a show at the bar tonight, I’d like it if you came too.”

“Like a… like a date?” Riven asked sleepily.

“Well…”

“Yes, not a relationship one, I know,” he grumbled. This was not really the ideal time for any conversation, least of all one that needed to be handled so delicately. “One that will probably end in sex, I mean.”

Luka laughed and ruffled his hair.

“Then yes, like a date.”

Sleepily, Riven exchanged numbers with Luka and let him out onto the fire escape so that he could get to his work. The cold air of the outside helped Riven wake up. He doubted that he’d be able to go back to sleep now so he focused on the other thing that would stop him feeling so grotty; water.

He had a little ensuite to his room and he spent a good five minutes filling and refilling a cup so that he could sip it until he felt waterlogged. Looking in the mirror he could see that there was still a lot of dried residue on his face from last night. Gross.

He showered and dressed and went to eat the breakfast that his host had thoughtfully made for him. She was incredibly sweet, having made him yet another fry up and brewed a big pot of coffee. Even accounting for his having given her his ration coupons, she was giving him too much food. But since he was starving, he gratefully devoured the extra food, and he tried to be as attentive to her stories about her children and grandchildren as his hungover state would allow.

The site office was little more than a shipping container wired up to a generator just outside Red Fountain. This was where he had to sign in to receive his tasks for the day. Amaryl and Eleanor were doing clerical work in the little office, and he and Amaryl exchanged stink-eyes as Riven collected his safety gear.

Before the siege at Red Fountain, after his ordeal in the Cloud Tower dump, she’d accosted him in the courtyard. 

“What are you doing here?” Amaryl had demanded, hands on hips, chin jutted out. “I heard you were Darcy’s boyfriend.”

“And I heard you were a whore, what’s your point?” He had retorted.

Well, actually, he hadn’t said that. He’d thought of what he should have said three days later in the shower. At the time he had been too tired, both emotionally and physically, to do anything but glare at her.

Gear on and ready to help, he joined Ronnie and Spencer clearing debris from yet another room. Most of the school was now rubble and Riven wasn’t sure that they’d be ready to start work restoring the place by the end of the summer, let alone have it up and running. The other two guys talked and joked around a lot while he worked in silence. The noise of shovel on rock grated in his ears and he made sure to take regular sips of water to speed up his hangover recovery.

He was taking another water break when Ronnie and Spencer, who had also stopped for a bit and were dicking around, suddenly turned their attention to him.

“You look like you had fun last night,” Spencer laughed, looking at him pointedly. Riven grunted an ambiguous response; he didn’t feel like talking at all, let alone going into detail about the previous night's where-and-who.

“Yeah, a really good time,” Ronnie added and pressed his fingers to the bruises on Riven’s neck. He slapped him away. Fucking Magix people touching everyone all the time. Back home this kind of thing never happened; physical contact was treated as being much more intimate on Zenith, and Magix’s touchy-feely culture freaked him the fuck out.

Ronnie withdrew his hand and scowled. Both of them felt the other had been rude.

“Ease up dude,” he snapped at Riven.

Riven took the first opportunity to get away from these asshats by taking the wheel barrow of rubble out to the dumping ground where it would all be collected at the end of the week by some firm that was going to do something with it As he dumped his pile of jagged pieces of stone and rock-dust onto the even bigger pile of jagged pieces of stone and rock-dust, Riven felt the first pang of homesickness he’d felt all year.

The feeling annoyed him. He hadn’t missed home even when he had been living in literal garbage, so why did he want so desperately to go home and see his dad now? It wasn’t like he wanted to break down and tell him everything that had happened this year, and he couldn’t imagine anything further from his father’s character than to offer comfort. 

But what he wanted right now was to be sitting on the sofa in front of the tv, drinking beer he’d stolen from the mini-fridge in the garage and pretend that he couldn’t hear the crackheads arguing with his father about prices in the front garden. The chaos of his home life was comforting and he at least knew that the expectations of him mostly boiled down to ‘never lend a junkie money’ and ‘don’t talk to the cops’. In Magix he had to keep up the appearance that he wasn’t trash.

Riven took his lunch break right after. He walked to the office and ignored Amaryl as he collected the paper bags of food that were sent down for the students each day. With trepidation he looked inside the first bag to see what was being offered today; the lunches were prepped and packed by a range of volunteers whose skill levels varied wildly.

As he tried to work out the contents of the sandwich without touching it, a boxy little TV in the corner of the office playing the news caught his attention. Another murder.

“I can’t wait for the hockey season to start back up,” Eleanor prattled. “I want to take Musa to see a game or two live…”

“Shut up for a second would you?” He said as he looked intently at the tv.

“Excuse me?!” Eleanor sounded indignant but Riven really didn’t care. He grabbed the remote off the desk and turned the volume up over the sound of Amaryl calling him an arsehole.

There were limited details again. Just a body, a stabbing, a crime scene. The police were refusing to confirm if it was linked to the murder from the other night, trying to blame the uptick in crime on the unrest. Riven wasn’t sure why the idea of widespread violence was better PR than the actions of one person, but he didn’t work for City Hall so what did he know? He was taking a curious interest in the bland news coverage until more details came across the bottom on the screen. 

The victim had been walking home alone from the Happy Bar. What if it had been someone he’d met? It can’t have been. Luka would have been told, and he hadn’t said anything of the sort to Riven before he’d left that morning. Everyone was fine.

But everyone couldn’t be. Because someone was dead now. He had spent last night very near whoever the police had just found. Someone had been alive when Riven had seen them last night and now they were murdered. It wasn’t like the attack on Red Fountain; it wasn’t like this guy would have known how to fight back. He would have been drunk, and unaware, and then he had been dead. Riven’s hands went numb and he turned on his heel to leave.

The fresh air didn’t make a difference to his lightheadedness and he fumbled to get his phone out. He was still holding the stupid lunchbag, but he couldn’t think to put it down as he tried to get in contact with Luka.

“Hello?” From the tone of his voice when he picked up, Riven knew that Luka had already heard the news.

“I just saw.” Riven didn’t know why he was calling, he was only going to upset Luka.

“Yeah.” His suspicions were confirmed when Luka’s voice managed to crack on just that word.

“I probably shouldn’t come out tonight,” Riven said after a pause. “I don’t want to get in the way, I’ll probably just get in the way.”

“I still want you to be there, if you’re comfortable coming out. I know a lot of people will be avoiding the bar now.”

“Huh?” He was stumped. Why the hell would the bar want an outsider around when one of their own had just died? Not died, murdered. “If you want me there I’ll go.”

“Thanks,” Luka said quietly. “I don't want to be stuck with just myself.”

“I said I’ll come.”

The call didn’t last much longer after that and Riven found a half-demolished wall to sit on as he ate his lunch without really tasting any of it. Once he was done he still had no idea what had been in that sandwich. 

Both Ronnie and Spencer could tell that something was wrong and didn’t bother him again for the rest of the day. He just felt numb, like he wasn’t really in the real world anymore. Riven went through the motions of his work without thinking and walked straight from the site to the bar without stopping to change.

The bouncer didn’t ID him this time, just gave him his slips and let him head over to where the others were already sitting. Riven felt like an imposter as he sat next to Luka. He had no business being here, intruding.

“The show’s still going on?” Helia asked stonily as Felix buried his head in the arm of Stephen’s jacket. It looked like no one was in the mood to chide him for that, not at a time like this. Luka nodded and Riven felt him put a hand on his knee as he answered. Dorian wasn’t there yet but they’d left a seat for him on the other side of Stephen.

“Yeah. I spoke to Gary and Marcus about what happened.” Riven put his hand on top of Luka’s as he spoke and squeezed. “They’ve told all the queens and there’s going to be a bit of a change to the program, though.”

“It feels weird to be out,” Stephen said, petting Felix’s hair with his free hand. “But we have to stick together, and there’s no point being sat home and miserable.”

“It’s not like we’re really any less miserable out, but I guess we have to try.” Helia ran his hand through the ends of his ponytail.

“What do we know about what happened?” Riven asked. The description of the stabbing and the caginess of the police was starting to make him consider the possibility of it being the same person strongly. “They were stabbed, a lot, and then they were left outside. It’s very similar to…”

“Hey Riven,” Stephen snapped. “How about you shut up?”

For a moment he was very confused as to why he was being told that, and then Riven saw Felix’s face, crumpled and half pressed into Stephen’s shirt, and he felt like an arsehole. This wasn’t his community, and he had no business being here with them, despite how tightly Luka was now holding onto him. Awkwardly, he got up.

“I’ll get us some drinks,” he said, not looking at any of them. He went to talk to the bartender without asking them their preferences; he was buying, he’d choose. Besides, he could describe the cocktail they’d all liked last time.

“How are they doing?” The bartender asked after Riven gave their order and handed over his slips and the money. 

“About as well as can be expected.”

“Maybe Mona Lott and Kitty Poon will cheer them up, I know they worked hard to change the show.”

Riven stared at him. What the hell was this guy talking about? Moreover, what kind of show had he been invited to? There was a stage being set up and sound guys were faffing with mics. The bartender saw his expression and gave a short laugh.

“Ah, you didn't know there was a drag show on tonight then?”

It was a drag show. Men were going to be dressing up as women and… doing what? Riven vaguely knew what drag was, in that he knew it was female impersonation, but he had no idea what they did once they were in their dresses and heels. The idea was mildly terrifying.

“No. I did not.”

“It should be good.” The bartender was looking at him with pity that he did not deserve. So far everyone here had been pleasant enough to him, and he hoped that he’d be able to talk to the others at his table again.

He dropped the drinks off before he made his excuses and retreated to the bathroom. He didn’t really need a piss but he did need to walk away for a while.

The only reason he was here, Riven considered, was because Luka had insisted the plan not change. The numbness was still there, as was the urge to just leave and not ever come back, but he ignored that and just washed his hands.

The door to the bathroom opened abruptly and Luka walked in, coming right up to Riven as he reached for one of the paper towels. He was very much in his personal space and Riven scowled; this was not what he wanted right now.

“What’s up?” Luka asked, folding his arms and glaring. Riven wasn’t entirely sure how the body language corresponded with what he was saying but went with it anyway.

“I don’t know why I’m here. You guys are going through something and I’m just there like an idiot while one of you died…”

He was cut off by Luka kissing him. Just grabbing him by the collar and yanking him within face range. A tooth grazed Riven’s lip and his mouth was forcefully opened by Luka’s tongue. One hand was still gripping his shirt and the other was seizing his shoulders. This wasn’t the situation that he’d expected to be in but he wasn’t going to complain. Riven hugged Luka back.

Eventually the kiss ended and Riven was forced into prolonged eye-contact.

“‘One of us’,” he corrected. “Maybe it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’re one of us and you belong here just as much as anyone else.”

“I'm not even gay…”

“So?” Luka laughed, still holding onto him. “You’re still queer, Helia is too and he doesn’t even like men. Hell, even if you were straight it wouldn’t really matter. Loads of people come here to get away from other bar culture or support their friends and family.”

“Helia’s not gay?”

“Nope, not even a little.”

“Then why isn’t he wearing a visitor’s badge?” Riven wrinkled his nose only to have Luka laugh at him.

“I thought you’d be aware that there’s more people in the queer community than just gay guys.”

Before Riven could question him any further the door opening once again and a middle-aged man came in to use one of the urinals.

“If you get caught fucking in here they make you do a walk of shame out and get banned for the night,” the interloper informed them.

Luka rolled his eyes and gave a performative sigh, but didn’t let go of Riven.

“I know that, Charles, I’ve watched you do it. And we’re not fucking, especially not while you’re taking a piss.” He turned back to Riven. “Come watch the show with us, I promise it’ll be worth it... Stephen wasn’t being personal earlier, he’s just protective.”

The door clattered open again and Riven recognised Mac the Junkie as he stumbled to a urinal. Charles rolled his eyes at the two of them before he turned his attention to the newcomer.

“How are you doing?” He asked as Mac unzipped.

“Good, went to the clinic last night. Had to wait there for like four hours though,” Mac said and grimaced. “Got to talking with one of the cute nurses though. Look, I found him on Blush.” Mac held up his phone with the app on its screen.

Luka took the opportunity to duck out and Riven followed him.

The lights had already been dimmed and he held onto Luka’s hand as they returned to their booth. Riven hadn’t noticed until now how full the bar was, it was packed despite being a weekday, although Dorian still wasn’t anywhere to be seen. At the far end, as close to the stage as they could get, was a bachelorette party complete with veils and penis-shaped foam fingers. There wasn’t time to say anything to Stephen before the spotlight went on and a queen in a blue gown and red wig took to the stage.

This was Mona Lott, and she was apparently the MC Queen for the evening. A lot of the crowd seemed to be very familiar with her and she had to wait a while for the applause to calm down before she started speaking. It turned out that what this drag queen did was mostly comedy and Riven found himself laughing even though all she was really saying was the program for the evening.

After Mona Lott was done with her introduction, she called Kitty Poon to the stage to perform a song. While Mona did look female in her dress and wig, Riven found it hard to believe that Kitty wasn’t actually a woman. Even her voice didn’t seem constrained by the normal male range. It compelled him to want to know what she looked like out of drag.

Kitty was several bars into her second song when arguing at the door started cutting into her performance. Irritated, she paused to see what was going on and most people in the bar did too, including Riven.

The bouncer was trying to calm down an irate woman, intent on getting in despite the building being at capacity. She wasn’t dressed like she was on a night out - black jeans, sensible boots, clean white tank top and conservative blazer. The way she stood so stiffly and the dark blazer she was wearing with jeans caused Riven to immediately clock her as police. How her hair was pulled back and the thick black rims of her glasses also had him clocking her preferences too.

Mona got up on stage and accepted the mic from Kitty. Both of them looked pissed.

“Could the bitch at the back please settle down? People are trying to enjoy their evening.”

“She’s a cop.” Riven had stood up so that he could yell, and the whole bar erupted into boos. From across the room the woman gave him an exasperated look.

“I know we say ‘fuck the police’ a lot,” Mona drawled. “But you won’t find anyone after your pussy here, love.” The cop allowed herself to be ushered out to cheers, but as soon as Kitty started back up again the bouncer was making his way over to Riven. Next to him, Luka sighed.

“You probably shouldn’t have done that,” he pointed out. “She’s going to be pissed now.”


	6. Magix is Burning Part 5: Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been through the wringer this week so apologies for the late update and if this is not quite as polished as usual

Luka was right on both counts, but old habits die hard. Especially when those habits stem from juvenile delinquency. Riven got up as soon as the bouncer got to them, picking up his cocktail and throwing his jacket over his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, she wants to see me outside.”

The cop was waiting for him in the alley outside, leant against the wall with her hands in her blazer pockets. Riven went to stand opposite her with a sour expression on his face. Sure, the Magix police wasn’t the same as the Zenith police but they weren’t any more charming to deal with. His record from home had been passed on when he was accepted at Red Fountain.

“Might I see your ID please,” she asked sweetly. Riven had known this was coming and had his wallet in his hand but he didn’t comply right away.

“Show me your badge.”

She held it up, showing her officer number and her name: Renee Marshall. Riven handed his forgery over, confident that this would be quick and then he could go back inside. She really had picked a bad day to show up uninvited.

“Thank you,” Renee said after she looked at his ID, and then put it in her pocket.

“Hey! I need that back.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait until you're actually twenty before you can have an ID like this again.” Renee was looking at him coldly.

“What the hell are you talking about? I am twenty.”

“See, I would be inclined to believe you if I hadn’t met you at Red Fountain during the battle. Headmaster Saladin was adamant that you were in your second year,” she said. “And given the identity of your ex girlfriend, I thought it would be a good idea to remember your face. Now, shall we talk about why you have a forgery down at the station?”

“Or,” Riven suggested. “You could forgo that unnecessary amount of paperwork and just ask me about the serial killer you’re looking for right here.”

“And what makes you think I’m here about a serial killer?” She asked innocently.

“Because last night a man walking home from here was killed, and before that another man was murdered in the same way,” Riven said. “I did some looking and there was another guy before that too. Stabbed, had his shit stolen only to be thrown away in a nearby dumpster.” He had found the news report during his depression-scrolling after Miles left. But he hadn’t connected the dots until just now.

“The last victim’s things haven’t been found yet," she said with a shrug. “It’s too early to tell.”

“Have you looked?”

“It’s just me working this case, so thank you for making it even harder by the way,” she snapped. “So no, I’ve been too busy with Mark’s autopsy report.”

There was a smash as Riven dropped his drink. It felt like his heart had dropped out of his chest when he heard her say the name. No, it couldn’t be that Mark was the victim.

“You knew him.” It wasn’t a question but he nodded dumbly anyway. How the hell was he supposed to tell the others?

“I was with him at the bar, just before… before…”

“I’m so sorry.” Renee’s demeanour had shifted from her default world-weary professional mask, a flash of pain in her eyes as she looked at him. “I need to ask you a few questions about what happened.”

“Yeah…”

Riven described the events of the previous night as best he could, leaving out all of the underage drinking since he was neither going to admit to that nor throw Luka under the bus. It was wrong that he was the first one to find out, he barely knew Mark. Had barely known Mark.

“And once you left the bar, where did you go?”

“Back to my host's house.”

“Got anyone to confirm that?”

“Luka… he came in with me.” Riven wanted the tarmac to open and swallow him whole, if he had known that he’d have to tell a cop about his sex life he never would have agreed to let Luka in. He was certain that she would be putting this in his file and now there would be official evidence that he fucked around with guys.

“I’ll need to speak with him,” she said apologetically.

“Sure…” Riven turned to go back inside and fetch him but Renee stopped him.

“If you think of anything else,” she said, handing him her card. “I would appreciate you calling me.” Riven grunted in distaste as he accepted the card begrudgingly.

He walked back to the booth as if he was in a trance. Luka could see the expression on his face and went over to hold him. It all felt so unnatural, he barely felt the arms around him. Helia stood up too.

“What happened? What did she say?”

“Mark,” he said. “It was Mark.”

Riven wasn’t really sure what happened after that. Just that all of a sudden Felix was crying, and the show was stopped, and Stephen prompted him to sit down but he just stood there, and Luka went out to talk to Renee, and Felix’s uncles came over to the booth.

He stayed where he was, in frozen silence, as the night wore on. Both Luka and Stephen were trying to console Felix as he sobbed so hard he started hyperventilating. Eventually, the two of them took him home, half carrying him out of the bar. That just left Helia and Riven together.

Riven jumped when a hand touched his arm.

“Are you doing okay?” Helia asked.

“I…” He didn’t know. He wasn’t feeling the same kind of overwhelming pain that Felix was, but he wasn’t feeling anything and that probably wasn’t good either. It didn’t feel like his body belonged to him anymore. “I don’t know.”

“We should get you home,” Helia said and stood up. “I’ll take you.”

“But then you'll be walking alone.” Riven was certain that no one was safe if the killer found an opportunity. The idea that someone else might die just because they were looking out for him made him want to be sick.

“Give me a minute,” Helia said, after thinking for a while. “I'll be back, okay?”

Riven wasn’t going anywhere anyway. He wasn’t sure that he had enough control over his legs to move.

As good as his word, Helia was back quickly and he had two guys with him. Riven did a double take as he realised that both of them were still wiping makeup off their faces. Were these the drag queens? Kitty looked almost the same, slim and delicate just like his female persona, but he only recognised Mona from the long acrylic nails he was still wearing.

“If it’s for you, Helia,” Mona said, blowing a kiss. “I’ll do anything.”

“Where do you live?” Kitty asked, looking at Riven, and he gave them his address.

Of all the things he had expected to do during the summer, being escorted home by two drag queens wasn’t on the list. But he didn’t protest, at this point he didn’t feel the need to. It wasn’t like he was in a place where he particularly cared if anyone saw him with them.

As they walked, Kitty and Mona bemoaned the rest of the show that they’d had to cut short, and gushed over a particular leotard that Kitty had been waiting to wear and was now going to have to wait even longer for. As they walked, they both referred to each other as their drag names rather than their boy names.

It took him a little while to process it, during which time they had moved on, but eventually he looked at Kitty in confusion.

“Doesn’t a leotard make it obvious that you’re a guy?” He had to be missing something; Kitty had just been talking about how proud he was that people couldn’t tell he was a guy in drag.

There was a pause from the other two and then Mona started laughing.

“Ah, see,” he said, slinging an arm around Riven’s shoulders. “There are definitely ways to make sure you can’t see we’ve got cocks.”

“…magic?”

“No, no!” It was Kitty's turn to laugh and she patted him on the head. If he hadn’t been drunk and in shock he might have been bothered by them laughing at him. “See, all you need to do is, get some athletic tape and feel around…”

The next few minutes involved details about what Riven could do with his own anatomy that he could have lived without knowing. He was horrified by the process but both Kitty and Mona talked about it like it was totally normal.

“What would your drag name be?” Kitty asked and Riven just stared. He was currently very aware of his testicles, and was getting considerably more protective over them.

“I don’t think I want to do drag.”

“I think we might have traumatised him,” Moana laughed. “Look, tucking is completely optional…”

Mercifully, they were close to his room and Riven quickly made it to the bottom of the fire escape. It wasn’t like he was scared of what they were saying, more that he was just at his limit of what he could actually process.

“I’m not even out yet,” he said, as he took hold of the handrail. “Bit soon to be making plans for me.”

“Fair enough,” Mona said with a smile and Kitty nodded too. “This your place?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll let you get some rest then, I hope that this shit-pile of a situation doesn’t stop you from wanting to come back to the bar.” Riven stared at Moana for a moment and then shrugged.

"I dunno, I'll probably be back.” 

He went to bed as soon as he got in, lying down fully clothed to stare at the ceiling.

It took him almost half an hour to work out what was wrong, why he was feeling this way: he wasn’t doing anything about this. He was numb and frozen because he had been letting himself feel helpless.

Riven sat up in bed and glared at the door in lieu of being able to glare at himself. He had been acting inexcusably pathetic that evening and he wasn't doing Mark, or Luka or any of the others a service by moping around.

The first person he called was Haikman.

“Riven?” Samuel yawned. The call had woken him..

“I can’t come to the site tomorrow.”

“And why is that?” It sounded like Haikman’s bullshit detector was coming to life.

“One of… one of my friends just died.” Riven balled his free hand into a fist. There was a hitch in Samuel's breath down the line.

“Okay, take some time out then and make sure you’re alright. Don’t worry about the foreman, I'll handle him.” There was a pause, the one that Samuel always used when he was giving a student time to add something before he moved on, but Riven had nothing else to say. “Let me know if and when you come back. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah. I won’t.”

He hung up and put his phone down. 

It was time to think intently, Riven wasn’t going to fall asleep tonight so he might as well use this time to think. He studied the old-fashioned pattern of the wallpaper. Getting his thoughts in order without writing things down was something that Riven did regularly; growing up around crackheads had made him careful of what he left lying around. 

First thing first - did he think this was a serial killer? He had a surprising amount of experience with them given the Bus Stop Butcher had spent four years terrorising his neighbourhood and had been apprehended behind a kebab house two blocks away from his house trying to stuff a dead woman into the dumpster. Riven hadn’t been able to sleep for a week after he’d heard about that.

The only way he’d been able to function again had been by reading everything he could find about serial killers like that. It had helped that the TV had, for most of his childhood, only broadcast three channels: the news station, a porn station, and a station that only ever showed true crime documentaries.

But to answer his own question… he was maybe seventy percent convinced. What were the odds that three men, all of whom had been roughly the same height, weight and build, had just happened to be killed in the exact same way? On the other hand, it was unusual for them all to be killed so quickly after each other. That didn’t sit right with him.

If he assumed that there was someone out there opportunistically picking off men, what did that mean he should do? It meant that he needed Mark to be counted as one of the victims because Riven was convinced that he was one. Detective Marshall had mentioned not having found the valuables that had been stolen from him, but that didn't mean the killer hadn’t abandoned them.

As soon as it was light, he was going to go out and look for Mark’s things. Right now though, he had something that he wanted to do.

He spent a few hours trawling through obituaries before passing out for a while, only to be woken up again when the sun came through the windows. Time to go dumpster diving - and he thought he was past that.


	7. Magix is Burning Part 6: Indigo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late, hopefully the next chapter will be on time.

Riven was well aware that he looked crazy as he started searching through trash in a perimeter around where Mark had been found. Maybe if he’d had enough sleep he might have had the forethought to bring gloves.

It was the fifteenth dumpster he checked when he found a plain white plastic bag that contained a wallet, a watch and a set of keys. Riven sat down next to the trashcan and called Detective Marshall: the watch was easily recognisable to Riven as Mark’s. She didn't answer the first or second time that he called, which he guessed wasn’t unusual given the early hour so he just sent her a message that he’d found something and where he was.

He hadn’t realised that he’d fallen asleep until the toe of a shoe prodded him awake. Groggily, Riven glared up at who had woken him only to see Renee Marshall glaring back down.

“Oh good," she snapped. “You’re alive still, for a moment I thought you’d died.”

Riven got up and stretched. Sleeping against a dumpster had fucked up his back.

“No, I'm still here.” He thrust a thumb behind him. “In there, I think it’s Mark’s things.”

Renee gave him a side-eye before she peered in, recoiling at the smell of rotting food that wafted up when she lifted the lid. Riven guessed he probably smelt now too, it was hard to tell, and his tolerance for garbage had gone up since he'd spent all that time in Cloud Towers dump.

“How can you tell?” She asked after she got a good look.

“It's Mark’s watch, I recognise it.”

“Okay, well I'm going to call this in and you’re going to… hm," she paused. “How far away is the place you’re staying?”

It took Riven a few tries to remember the address of his hostess. She would probably be very concerned when he didn’t come down for breakfast that morning, and he felt bad about that.

“That's a bit far for you in your current state, isn't it?” She said, and chewed her bottom lip. “Let's see if Gary is in, shall we?”

“‘Gary’?” He asked as he used the hand she offered to drag himself to his feet.

“The owner of the Happy Bar… didn’t you know that?”

“No, I've been there like twice,” Riven snorted. “I’m not gay.”

Renee gave him a look that said she absolutely did not believe him, but the sleep deprivation was catching up to him and he didn't have the energy to push it.

She led him back to the Happy Bar and banged on the closed door loudly. Eventually, a window on the floor above opened and a middle-aged man put his head out to glare down at them.

“What do you want?” 

“I need some help.”

“Of course you do.” The man rolled his eyes and gave a performative sigh. "I'm coming down.”

Gary let them in wearing only a lime green dressing gown and slippers and as soon as Riven sat down his limbs turned to jelly. The older man gave him a withering look before turning to Renee.

“What's he on then?”

“As far as I know, nothing,” Renee said.

“Yeah,” Riven agreed. "I haven't taken anything, I just haven't slept.”

“I just need you to look after him for a bit,” she pleaded, addressing Gary. "He found something relevant to Mark's case and I need to have it checked out.”

The man's demeanour changed. He still looked tired and irritable and like he’d very much wanted to still be in bed, but the tension and aggression left his body as he gave Riven a sympathetic smile.

“You're that kid from Red Fountain that Felix dragged in, aren’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“Let’s get you something to eat and the detective here can piss off and go to work,” Gary snorted and then turned to her. “If you’re good, I might give you a doughnut.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Renee left and Gary took Riven through to the back so that he could be fed. The kitchen had only been briefly cleaned from the night before and piles of empty bottles overflowed from the recycling. Gary whistled to himself as he cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them together.

“What were you doing out this early anyway?” He asked. “Were you sleeping in the trash or something?”

“No. I went looking for Mark’s things,” Riven said. “They just happened to be in a dumpster.”

“Now why would you go rooting around in one of those? That’s Renee’s job, not yours. You should be at home, keeping safe.”

Riven kept silent for a minute as he thought, Gary continued cooking and let Riven stew on what he said. He was too tired for pretences, he never had to see this man again if he didn’t want to, so he just told the truth.

“Because it’s my fault that Mark’s dead.” If Riven hadn’t gone to the bar on a whim, so much would be different. They would have all split up differently and Mark wouldn’t have been walking alone…

“How’d you figure that?” Gary snorted. “Were you the one that stabbed him?”

“No, but…”

“Then you’re not responsible.” Gary put his whisk down. “Whatever is going on in your head… it’s just guilt talking. Guilt because you’re here and he isn’t, you were in the school when it was attacked weren’t you? There are probably quite a few people you knew who aren’t here anymore.”

He was right. They were mostly teachers. Adults who had promised to look after kids like him and who had all of a sudden found that that meant laying down their lives. Adults Riven had known, spent time with, laughed with, argued with, and now they were gone.

Shamefully, he couldn’t keep back the tears. It frustrated him that he was crying like a little kid, face all screwed up, nose running, but between the sleep deprivation and all the shit that had happened this year there was no stopping it. He tried so hard not to be helpless and yet here he was, able to do fuck-all. What was the point of going to Red Fountain, taking all those classes if he was still useless?

Riven let Gary send him to bed after he ate. The man was right; he needed some sleep.

There was a moment of confusion when he woke up a few hours later and didn’t recognise where he was. The spare bedroom he was in looked like it was probably where Felix slept whenever he stayed with his uncles; there were bottles of pink hair dye on the window sill and posters of a band on the walls. The clock by the bed said it was around midday. Riven groaned and swung his legs out from under the covers. He didn’t want to stay in their bed any longer.

Going downstairs he saw that Gary and his husband were cleaning and Felix was sitting at the bar, miserably eating cold mozzarella sticks. Riven went to sit next to him.

“‘Morning,” Felix said glumly. “Heard you went dumpster diving earlier.”

“Yeah, well, I found something that might help the police.” Riven couldn’t help but grimace at that; there were plenty of people at home that would smack him for saying that.

“Thank you.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Felix said. “You could have just waited for Detective Marshall to do her job, like I was.”

“I just couldn’t sleep.” That was a lie, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“I can’t think about it and you can’t stop thinking about it?”

“Something like that… are you watching your back?” Riven asked. Felix was about a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet and definitely didn’t look like he could throw a punch, let alone take one. Felix gave a sad laugh.

“If by ‘watching my back’ you mean no one will let me out of their sight now, then yes. I don’t think I’m in any danger though.”

“I don’t know about that, I looked at all the victims and…”

“They were all gay?” Felix finished for him and sighed at Riven’s shocked expression. “I know you’re new to this whole ‘queer’ thing, but as soon as I heard about Mark and that there were others… I just kind of assumed that it was because of that.”

“How often does this fucking happen?!”

“It’s not as if every week is like this,” Felix shrugged. “But it’s also not that uncommon.”

“I thought Magix was quite liberal…” certainly the way some people back on Zenith talked about the city had made him believe that.

“Mostly that’s true, but the people that object to us, they really object to us. Mozzarella stick?”

Riven declined.

He’d known there were people with negative opinions about gay guys, he’d been one of them for a while after all, but he’d never considered the lengths to which some of them might go.

There wasn’t much time to consider that though, because Gary came out of the kitchen, talking on the phone. It was hard to tell what was going on since he could only hear half the conversation, but Riven was sure that Gary was discussing someone being in the hospital. And that the person he was talking to was Renee.

When Gary hung up, he turned to look at the two boys watching him closely. He sighed and shook his head.

“There was another attack last night,” he explained and then held up his hands when both of them tried to start asking questions at the same time. “But it wasn’t fatal.”

“So they survived?” Relief and anxiety were curdling in Riven’s stomach. These last few days had been a series of non-stop proverbial punches to the face and he wasn’t sure he had the capacity to process another one.

“Yes, whoever’s responsible picked on the wrong guy. Avalon is a formidable paladin, if he hadn’t been taken by surprise I doubt it would have been possible to hurt him. As it stands, he was able to patch himself up well enough to get to the hospital,” Gary explained. “I should send him some flowers or something…”

“He might be able to identify who it was then, right?” That would mean this would end the attacks.

“Possibly.” Gary nodded. “If I gave you two boys some cash could you run down to the florist and get a bouquet or something? Maybe a fruit basket too and take it over there?”

“Yeah, sure,” Riven agreed and both he and Felix stood up.

They were given a few notes from Gary’s wallet as well as the name of the ward Avalon was on and they left to go find a suitable shop. As they walked, Riven could tell that Felix was not doing well. He jumped at every small noise, cowered away from strangers that walked past them, and couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Felix picked out some potted geraniums and a selection of tropical fruit for Avalon while Riven stood back, having no clue what plants were supposed to be offered as gifts in this situation. They all looked green and leafy to him.

“Hey,” Riven said after they paid. “If you don’t want to go to the hospital, you don’t have to.”

“Really? You don’t mind?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Riven had a gut feeling that he made him want to investigate, and it would be easier if Felix wasn’t there. With how twitchy he was, it would be impossible to do anything covert if he tagged along.

He took Felix back to the bar before he headed out to the hospital. The place was heaving. There had been a backlog of patients suffering from injuries and ailments that weren’t as urgent as those that had needed intensive care immediately after the Trix had been apprehended. There were a lot of pregnant women and new parents in the waiting room, their babies screaming at the bright lights and strange noises.

Riven had to wait in a long queue just to ask for directions to where he could find Avalon’s ward. The receptionist directed him to one of the upper floors, sending him on his way as quickly as she could to get to the next person in line.

Avalon was in a group ward, sharing the room with what had to be thirty other people. Riven saw that the patients’ names were printed on A4 sheets of paper that were pinned on the curtains that were drawn around the beds in an attempt at privacy. Riven approached Avalon’s bed, but didn’t make any move to alert the man that he was there; because Renee’s shoes were visible in the six inch gap between the cold vinyl and the blue curtain.

“So you think he was an addict?” She was saying, the sounds of a pen almost out of ink scratching across paper accompanying her voice.

“He had very pronounced track marks, yes.” Avalon’s upper class accent made Riven wrinkle his nose. “An air motif on his neck too. It looked like it was new and not well cared for.”

Riven’s eyes widened as he heard that. Avalon was describing Mac, the hooker that Luka had told him to stay away from. That guy was weedy as shit, but drugs could make you do some extraordinary things.

“I think I know the guy you’re talking about,” Renee said with a sigh, flipping her notebook closed. “Sutcliffe Road is one of the spots he works.”

“I guess it’s my fault for hanging around the wrong area.” Avalon laughed and then made a strangled noise of pain. “That hurts, I shouldn’t do that again.”

“You get some rest, okay, we’ll need you in court.” 

The sound of Renee opening her bag to put her notepad away was Riven’s cue to pretend like he'd just arrived and cleared his throat as he tugged on the curtain in lieu of anything he could knock on.

“Oh, who’s this?” Avalon said cheerily.

“Hi,” Riven said woodenly as he went to put the fruit and flowers on the bedside table. “The guys at Happy Bar wanted to give you something, and hope you recover soon.”

Renee was looking at him closely, eyes narrowed. But Riven ignored her to focus on the man in the bed. Avalon was an older man with streaks of grey from his temple cast against his dark hair, but with paladins it was always hard to tell their exact age. Vain bastards. Even now he was putting on a fake smile, despite the bandages around his torso and the cannula in his arm.

He rubbed Riven up the wrong way, and not because of the expensive gold watch on his wrist either. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was about Avalon that made his hackles rise, just that there was something… Darcy-like about him.

“Oh how lovely!” Avalon exclaimed. “Do pass on my thanks, would you? It is so good to have people one can count on.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well that is nice of them,” Renee’s voice didn’t reflect what she said. “Why don’t I make sure that you get home safe now, Riven?”

“Er…”

“Let’s leave Avalon to get some rest.” Riven felt her grip his sleeve and pull, hard.

She frogmarched him out and into the hospital car park before she let go of his shirt. Riven adjusted his clothing once he was free. Renee schooled her face so as not to look furious with him.

“You know, the reception radio me when anyone goes to visit a patient that’s part of an ongoing investigation, right?” She snapped. Ah, he hadn’t known that, although it did make sense. “You’re not making things easy for me, snooping around and eavesdropping.”

“Okay, sorry, but I think Avalon is lying.”

“And why do you think that?”

“He’s pinning it on Mac, but that guy is hardly violent.” Riven was struggling to get the right words out. He’d known junkies like that before, they didn’t go from giggling in bar toilets to stabbing people three nights in a row. They just didn’t.

“He has a record,” Renee countered, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, and I bet it’s all for non-violent offences,” he snapped back. “Let me guess, soliciting outside of a brothel? Possession of drugs? Small time dealing?” Renee pursed her lips and sighed again.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a junkie’s assaulted someone, maybe he was given a bad batch?”

It was Riven’s turn to be exasperated. There were patterns with how people acted, and those of addicts were well documented. How did a cop not understand this? 

“What? You think there’s something you can put in heroin that’ll make some suddenly commit murder? More likely someone put a hex on him.”

“Well that might be something to investigate,” she shrugged. “But why are you so certain? I didn’t think he was one of your friends…”

“He’s not, I barely know him… look.” Riven got out his phone to show her the post that Mac had made the night that Mark had died. “This is time and geo stamped. No way could he have got from there to Sheep Street in time to stab someone.”

Renee paused, hand rubbing her forehead. Her shoulders were tense from stress but Riven wasn’t about to let this go just to make things easier on her.

“Okay, okay,” she said slowly. “Let’s ignore the fact that he could have used a vehicle…”

“Yeah, because there are so many buses and taxis just flying around the streets,” Riven pointed out sarcastically. 

“Ignoring that,” she glared at him. “Why is Avalon lying? He’s a well-respected academic with no enemies, and it’s not like he escaped with just a scrape; the man’s been used as a goddamn pincushion. You haven’t seen what happened to his stomach - I’m surprised he has any organs left.”

“Fuck it, maybe he’s just confused?” Or maybe someone was assuming Mac’s likeness, it would hardly be the first time a murderer used magic to help cover their tracks.

“Look, Riven,” she said gently. “I know this isn’t easy, and I know you want to help, but you have to let me do my job. I get that you have good intentions but I can’t go about this with an upset kid on my coattails…”

“Oh fuck off!” Riven yelled. A nurse helping elderly patients onto a bus turned around to give him a dirty look. 

“Go home, Riven,” Renee said. “Maybe see a friend, just calm down.”


	8. Magix is Burning Part 7: Violet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is sexually explicit, so either have fun or clutch your pearls.

“So that’s why you came to my house?” Luka asked, watching as Riven continued to pace even though he’d stopped talking. “I didn’t think that you knew where I lived.” Riven waved that away and continued to wear holes in the carpet.

“Oh, Gary told me.”

“I’ll remember to thank him for so freely giving out my address…” Luka rocked back so that he was lying across his couch and lifted his feet onto the armrest at the other end. “She’s right though. You should just leave it to her.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Riven snapped. “And I don’t get why she can’t see it.”

“What do you think doesn’t make sense?”

“Mac is the fucking ideal patsy.” Riven finally stopped pacing and turned to stare at Luka, arms folded across his chest. “He’s a gay hooker who’s addicted to drugs and has been having run-ins with the police for years now. It’s like - if you were going to pick a fall guy, he would be it. No one is going to believe a junkie over an academic and it’s not like Mac has anyone in his corner.

“And the descriptions are all way too violent for that kind of guy too. You really think he could stab people that many times, that many nights in a row without either getting hurt himself or needing to stop halfway through for a fucking break?”

“That is true,” Luka conceded. “No one at the bar has ever mentioned him being aggressive before.”

“And!” Riven was fuming again. “That skinny-ass bastard couldn’t make it across town by himself. That photo should count as a good enough fucking alibi.”

With all of that finally out, he exhaled the rest of his breath and Luka patted the back of the couch. Riven went to sit by his feet only to find himself pulled back into a horizontal position against Luka’s chest. He reluctantly let arms snake around his waist and hold him closer to the other boy. They lay like that in silence for a few moments.

“I’m going to say something you’re not going to like.” Luka’s voice was muffled as he spoke into Riven’s neck. “But you should drop this - just for now.”

“Why?!”

“Because,” he said. “Right now anything you do will confirm to Renee that you’re a hotheaded little kid that she was right not to listen to. And Mac will be okay for now, or well, you know, as okay as you could be in his position. With all the bureaucratic backlog he won’t get a trial for at least a year, and since there’s no way that he can make bail he’ll spend that time in rehab.”

“And in the meantime, the real killer what? Is free to keep killing?” Riven was still angry, but kisses were being planted on his neck and that was making it hard for him to stay mad for much longer.

“If there’s another attack when Mac’s in prison then that will prove that it wasn’t him. Although if Avalon got fooled it's more likely that they’ll stop now that their patsy is in custody.”

“It just sucks.” He finally relaxed and put his weight on Luka. “All of this is a shitshow and it’s not even going to get resolved before I reach my last year.”

“Yep,” Luka sighed. “Believe it or not this is probably the best response from the police we could have hoped for.”

“What do you mean?” Riven turned his head so that he could see Luka’s face, only to have a kiss planted on his nose that made him grimace.

“I’m sure this is super hard to believe,” Luka said sarcastically. “But us gays haven’t exactly had a happy history with the police.”

“You don’t say,” Riven snorted.

“Renee is actually the most friendly in the whole department, and even that’s tenuous at best.” Beneath him, Riven felt Luka sigh heavily. “This is a depressing conversation. Let’s do something else.”

“Like what?”

“I’m hungry, let’s get something to eat.”

Riven begrudgingly got off him and Luka went to fetch his jacket, patting his pockets to make sure he had his keys and wallet. Riven watched as the other ran a hand through his hair and found that he was getting distracted. He really did like Luka, and not just in a wanting to suck his dick kind of way. Not in a wanting a relationship way either, but it was oddly comforting to feel mildly attached to someone who wasn’t involved in the three schools.

He let Luka pick where they went, approving of the burrito hut that he was led into. It was all customisable which worked out for keeping to his macros. Riven requested every type of bean they had and both chicken and beef. Luka looked at him, half-impressed and half-horrified.

“Can you eat all that?”

“Yeah…” Riven didn’t see what the big deal was. “And I assume you’re paying since you still owe me a date.” Luka looked scandalised but he was still smiling.

“Don’t they pay you for the work you do at the schools?” He asked as he handed over cash for their lunches.

“They do, I’ve just got some things I need it for.”

“Tch.” Luka carried both of their burritos over to a table and Riven sat down opposite him. It occurred to him that they were in the middle of a lunch rush; here he was out with another guy in a place where anyone he knew could see them.

Riven unwrapped his burrito and was satisfied to see that it was almost as big as his forearm. He grinned at Luka.

“Wanna see how fast I can eat this?” He asked as he held it up to his mouth.

“…with great trepidation I will say yes.”

He managed it in under a minute, which was close to his personal best but didn’t beat it. Luka had barely finished his first mouthful by the time Riven was sucking the escaped guac off his fingers. He stared at him for almost as long as it had taken to eat the burrito and then tilted his head.

“See, now why do I find that mildly arousing?” He asked and Riven snorted with laughter. “How do you not feel sick?”

“I dunno,” Riven shrugged. “Sometimes you’ve gotta eat fast. And I’m good at fitting big things in my mouth, you’ll see later.”

Luka choked a little on his bite of burrito and held up a hand to his mouth as he spoke with his mouth full.

“I was going to make a joke about paying for dinner but I didn’t want to assume, especially given your Zenith sense of humour,” he explained.

“‘Zenith sense of humour’?”

“You know, your planet doesn’t have one.”

“I can always not blow you after this,” Riven offered, and watched with some degree of satisfaction as Luka back-pedalled. 

“I didn’t say that, I just thought it might be off-colour…” Luka had gone slightly pink and he took another bite to avoid having to say anything else. It was odd. To Riven, Luka seemed like he was much older and worldly and more unflappable than he was. But here was proof that he was only human.

An idea passed through Riven’s head and he almost threw it out immediately, but the blush on Luka’s face made him pause. There was a group of people loudly walking by and he waited until   
they had passed before he voiced it.

“So, do you only get and give head?” He asked, wishing he hadn’t eaten all his food immediately so that he had something to focus on other than Luka’s face. Although the other guy didn’t have a particularly animated reaction to the question.

“Not always,” he said after he finished chewing and swallowed. “Although it’s certainly easier just to do mouth stuff with someone you’ve just met.”

“And that’s what you usually do?” Riven was hoping that he would get the gist of what he was trying to ask without actually having to say it explicitly.

“I guess? It’s not like I’m having endless one night stands. I’m not old enough to have got around that much.”

Riven didn’t say anything else for a while, just watched Luka eat. It shouldn’t be this hard to say. He was acting like a girl, getting all worked up and… and fucking coy. He should just say the words and deal with it, but his jaw physically wouldn’t unlock anymore to let him. This was stupid. He was stupid.

“What are you thinking?” Luka finally asked.

“Huh?” At least he managed to get that noise passed his gritted teeth.

“You look like you’re in physical pain so I thought you were getting in your head… although I suppose you did eat a monster burrito very quickly, so maybe you just have indigestion.” Luka gave him a pointed look that said he did not believe that it was the latter.

“I’ve only ever sucked guys off before…” That was a cop out, but it was the best that Riven could manage without wanting to take off running. Luka sighed and put his burrito down.

“You know, it’s very difficult to talk to you,” he informed Riven. “It would be nice to know that I’ve got the right end of the stick before I suggest going to the corner shop to pick up condoms and lube.”

It was like he was being told off and that made Riven want to curl up and die. He was managing to act like a child and there was no way that was appealing. His first instinct was right; he should have just said nothing. Luka exhaled gently.

“What are you gonna do with the money you get from your summer job then,” he asked instead, mercifully changing the subject. “You know, since you’re not buying food.”

“Hmm, well, I wanted to do some upgrades on my windrider. Planning on upgrading the power converter so that it increases voltage to the engine… couple of extra voltage transistors should do the trick.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“I figure the manufacturer gave it a good safety margin. It’ll be fine.” Riven shrugged; the bikes were only scary when they were an unknown. The first year of Red Fountain, when he’d had to disassemble and reassemble different parts of engines had dealt with that. Luka laughed.

“I hope you don’t fucking die.”

“Nah, I know what I’m doing.” He had to have spent a thousand hours working on bikes, his and other people’s. The windrider wouldn’t blow up on him. Probably. Hopefully.

“Well,” Luka pushed the empty wrapper into the table. “I’m done now too. Shall we get going?”

They put their rubbish in the bin and wandered out into the city. Luka had taken the day off for the same reason as Riven as well as wanting to run some overdue errands. There was a lot of waiting in lines, at the bank, at the pharmacy, and the post office, but Riven found he didn’t mind. It almost felt like just a normal day, in a city that hadn’t been ravaged only two months prior.

Luka had been out of school for two years now and that meant, in spite of their age gap, he seemed like much more of an adult that Riven did. Even if he got nervous when he had to pay his part of the rent over the phone in the banks’ lobby because all of the tellers were busy. As someone from Zenith, the sudden reduction in the level of technology was a shock, but at least Riven didn’t need to do things like banking.

By the time it hit five o’clock though, it really started to get busy and the two of them headed back to Luka’s apartment. His flatmates were back and watching the tv so they retreated to his room instead of staying in the living room.

Luka’s bedroom looked very normal for a guy his age, there were a few posters tacked to the wall, a laundry bin overflowing with clothes he hadn’t washed yet, and a double bed that looked huge in the small space. Riven wasn’t sure why he was surprised by this; it wasn’t that different to his bedroom at home. He had just expected… something else.

He watched as Luka kicked off his shoes and flopped backwards onto his bed. He put his hands behind his head which caused his shirt to ride up over his stomach, and Riven had to consciously stop himself from staring at the line of dark hair that stretched from under his waistband to his naval. He hadn’t noticed that before; they hadn’t really seen each other in daylight before and now he couldn’t stop noticing it.

“You don’t have to just stand around,” he told Riven. “You can sit.”

Riven did as he was told, sitting rigidly next to Luka’s knees only for him to be tugged down into a horizontal position. He didn’t know why he was so uncomfortable; he wanted to be touched by Luka, he wanted to be in Luka’s bedroom, he just couldn’t bring himself to do anything that would show he wanted those things. This is why he didn’t do this shit sober.

He let Luka kiss him, finding it easier to relax when his eyes were closed. A hand crept up under his shirt and his heartbeat sped up under the touch of warm fingers as they brushed against his sternum. Riven was suddenly aware that, since he was lying on his side, one hand was very close to Luka’s crotch and he froze.

Luka pulled away from him and sighed.

“Get. Out. Of. Your. Head.” He said sternly. “Get out of your head or I’ll start thinking that you don’t want to be here.”

“I do…” Riven sounded pathetic, even to himself. He couldn’t work out how to say ‘fuck me, please’ using phrasing he was comfortable with.

Luka sighed again and got up, untangling himself. He didn’t see the disappointment in Riven’s face as he searched through his jacket pockets before throwing a bottle of lube across the room. It hit Riven in the chest.

“I’m only going to fuck you if you tell me that’s what you want,” he said and indicated the dresser next to the bed. “There are condoms in the drawers too. So the only thing that we don’t have is you saying you want me to.”

Riven’s mouth opened and then closed again. Nope. He couldn’t say it. He was physically incapable of it.

“Okay, okay…” Luka said and went to lean over Riven. “I’m going to jerk you off now and I’m relying on you to punch me in the head if I do something you don’t like since apparently you can’t use words.”

Riven sat perfectly still as his jeans were unzipped and his boxers pulled down. He was already hard; the distaste in Luka’s voice was turning out to be yet another thing that he was ashamed to find arousing.

Luka wrapped his hand around Riven’s erection and started to move up and down, not breaking eye contact as he did so. He squirmed under his touch, aware that Luka’s flatmates were in the other room and any noise he made might be heard by them. Struggle as he might, a weird gasp came out of his mouth and Luka placed a hand firmly around his neck and squeezed.

“Shush,” he said quietly, and then started kissing Riven.

It was very difficult to stay sane. He couldn’t think straight, not with Luka touching him like this. What was worse was that it made him want to start begging to be fucked. He wanted to fuck Luka so badly, and the mental blockade that stopped him from saying so was crumbling fast. Riven mumbled something against Luka’s mouth.

“What was that?” Luka pulled away slightly.

“How does it work?” He may never have been this embarrassed in his life. He knew the general gist of what went where, but that was it. And he’d never been on the receiving end before.

Luka let go of Riven and went to sit next to him. What followed was the most excruciating lesson in male anatomy he had ever experienced, and a great deal of knowledge was imparted about preparation for anal sex. He must have looked horrified because Luka started laughing.

“You don’t have to go through with it,” he said. “It’s hardly mandatory.”

“I like the idea but actually doing it…”

“You could always talk to Felix,” Luka suggested helpfully and Riven shot him a dirty look.

“I am not talking to anyone about this.” He barely felt able to say anything to the guy he wanted to fuck, there was no way he was involving a single other person in this discussion.

“Okay, then what do you want to do?” Luka shrugged and lay down. He seemed so unbothered for someone who was definitely still hard. Riven stayed frozen in place a while. He wished he wasn’t so scared of this, it didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t like he couldn’t take Luka in a fight. There was nothing to actually be scared of.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Riven got up, rearranging his opened trousers. “Give me the lube.”

Lukas tossed him the bottle and he made his way to the bathroom, determined not to be a coward about this. Although his bravado did not last long once he was alone. If he wasn’t so turned on he would have been climbing out of the window and booking it down the street, never to return.

But he wasn’t thinking straight so instead he did what Luka told him and tried not to think about what it was he was doing. There were a lot of people on Zenith who would be disappointed, mad even, if they knew what he was doing. But he put them out of his mind as he returned to the bedroom.

“That’s not a good face to be pulling,” Luka commented as he shut the door behind him and set the lube down.

“Don’t say anything, let’s just get on with it.” Riven started to strip, tossing his shirt on the floor. Luka snorted at him but started to get undressed anyway.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been propositioned so delicately before,” he laughed as he ripped open a condom with his teeth. “Get on the bed.”

Riven moved to lie down only to have his face pushed into the pillow as Luka moved to be behind him. This was humiliating. It wasn’t just the position he was in, or the fact that Luka was starting to push his fingers into Riven, it was that he liked it. He was having trouble staying quiet. It definitely felt weird and kind of uncomfortable but he didn’t want Luka to stop.

He made another weird gasp when Luka withdrew his fingers to roll the condom down his dick and reached for the lube. Riven couldn’t understand how he was so calm about the whole situation, as if this was perfectly normal and that there weren’t people Riven knew that would kick his face in for this. He couldn’t stop himself from tensing up as Luka started pressing the tip of his dick against his arsehole.

“You need to relax,” Luka said, one of his hands in Riven’s hair. Riven tried, making a face into the pillow at the discomfort of Luka sliding in.

Both of them stayed still for a few moments as Riven got used to the new sensation. It wasn’t bad, it was just strange. He was starting to wonder why he’d wanted this. And then gradually Luka started to move. The feel changed and as Riven started to become more vocal, Luka sped up.

Riven gripped the sheets to stay grounded. He tried to control the noises he was making and in doing so heard Luka’s panting behind him. Between that and the hand holding him down, Riven finally let go. It was the vulnerability. He could relax and just feel what was going on, there was no one relying on him, he had no responsibilities, and Luka could just take what he wanted. 

Luka’s fingers twisted in his hair, and he leant over to bite the back of Riven’s neck as he kept thrusting. With their faces so close to each other, it was impossible to miss the appreciative noises Luka was making, moaning straight into his ear. There was a particularly deep thrust and Riven couldn’t help himself.

“Fuck,” he breathed. His voice didn’t sound right, far too weak and helpless and devoid of masculinity but he didn’t care. Luka had enough rough edges and strength for both of them at this moment.

Riven felt Luka kiss his shoulder, and the hand on his hip slipped around to start jerking him off. That didn’t last for long though, because Luka shuddered over him and Riven heard him groan as he came. Luka stayed above him for a few moments before he pulled out and moved away, rolling the condom off and binning it. Riven rolled over onto his back. Luka had used a liberal amount of lube and he was suddenly aware that everything south of his pelvis was uncomfortably slick.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Luka said, climbing back onto the bed and towering over him. Riven didn’t get a chance to say anything before there was a hand around his dick and Luka was kissing him, biting his bottom lip.

Riven reached up to touch Luka’s face, the first contact that he’d ever initiated with him. He figured at this point, after being fucked in the arse, there wasn’t much more masculinity he could lose in this situation.

Luka broke the kiss but didn’t pull back, staying close so that he could admire the faces Riven was making. He smiled down at him.

“Choke me,” Riven blurted out, and then immediately regretted it. He couldn’t look away from Luka in this position, and winced as he maintained eye contact. But Luka didn’t say anything, he just moved his arm so that he was putting pressure across Riven’s neck.

It didn’t take long after that before he came, getting semen on both of them. Luka rolled off him, not even a little fazed by the fact Riven had got cum all over his lower stomach.

They lay together in silence for a while, both breathing heavily, before Luka reached over to grab a handful of tissues and offered Riven some. He took some to wipe himself up.

Luka stretched his arms above his head and got out of bed to drag his jeans back on.

“I’m getting a beer, you want one?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He could use a drink after that. He had never felt like less of a man and he had never cared less about that. It was a lot to unpack.

Luka left for a few minutes, Riven could hear him joking around with his housemates in the living room as if he had nothing to be ashamed of, before he returned with two beers from the fridge. He handed one to Riven and cracked his can open.

Riven followed suit and chugged. Luka snorted as he watched Riven finish the can and throw the empty into the bin.

“You alright there?” Luka’s voice was joking, but there was worry in his expression.

“Yeah,” he nodded and lay back down. Then he asked the question he’d been contemplating since he came. “Do you still think of me the same way?”

“Huh?” Luka was genuinely confused. “I still like you if that’s what you mean.”

“No… it’s,” Riven stopped and frowned. He didn’t know what words to use. “It’s very emasculating.”

Luka looked surprised.

“I don’t respect you any less. Would be a dick move to look down on someone because they fucked me.” He took another sip of his beer. “…You didn’t hate it, right?”

“No,” Riven said, and reached out to touch Luka’s hand without thinking. “I liked it. I came didn’t I?”

“Well yeah but,” Luka gestured vaguely. “Still feel like I should ask. How’s your neck?”

“Oh, fine.” Riven had forgotten that he’d been choked. It was hardly like actual sparring, he’d boxed with Haikman and been punched in the throat until he’d learnt to dodge. This had been nothing in comparison.

“Good.” Luka looked relieved and leant over to kiss him again. Riven was surprised, but managed not to freeze up this time. He was strangely comfortable with Luka touching him like this; he hadn’t even put his clothes on and yet he was unbothered.

“I think I am bi.” It was hard to keep his damned mouth shut around Luka for some reason.

“Still like girls then, huh?” Luka didn’t seem bothered though.

“Yeah.”

“Any girl in particular that’s making you say that?”

“Why do you ask? Feeling jealous?” Riven laughed and Luka gave him a playful shove.

“Not particularly… not unless you want me to be.” He stuck his tongue out at Riven. “Mostly just curious.”

“There’s no girl I’m interested in, but there is one that I know likes me.” Musa’s panicked face right before she’d kissed him was stuck in his memory.

“Oh?”

“Yeah…” Riven got up to riffle through his jeans for his phone and pulled Blush up. It wasn’t hard to find Musa’s profile and show some of her photos to Luka. Luka nodded, taking the phone and swiping through her posts. He looked uncomfortable when he landed on a picture of her at the beach.

“She looks… fit.” Riven burst out laughing at his expression.

“This does nothing for you, does it?” He gestured at Musa in her bikini and sunhat.

“Not a damned thing.” Luka shook his head and shrugged. “Still definitely gay. So what’s wrong with her then?”

“Huh?”

“What makes you not interested in her, when you know she’s into you?” Riven took his phone back, closing Blush.

“I dunno, I’m just not. She’s so timid…”

“So you don’t think that she could top you then.”

“It’s hard to imagine her being dominant, yeah.” He’d kissed her pretty fucking deeply and she’d barely had any reaction to it. It didn’t make him confident that they were into the same things.

“Ah well,” Luka shrugged. “For now I can just top you.”

He leant over to kiss Riven again, an arm around his shoulders as he pressed the two of them together. Riven wondered if he was as passive as Musa was when it came to making out. If he was, Luka didn’t seem to mind, pressing him into the mattress so that he could kiss him harder.

They only broke apart when Riven’s phone started buzzing in his lap. He untangled himself from Luka and sat up so that he could answer it. He grimaced when he heard Codatorta’s voice on the other end.

“Yeah?” Riven said.

“I’ve had a call from the Zenith embassy,” Codatorta informed him. “They’re calling all citizens home now. I know you said you wanted to stay here the whole summer but the consulate is insisting.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Do I have to organise the shuttle or are they doing that?”

“They’re sending tickets over for you. Call your father to let him know you’re coming home, and come see me at the offices tomorrow morning. I’ll give you your pay and the shuttle passes.”

Riven finished off the call with the appropriate niceties and hung up to find that Luka was looking at him closely.

“What’s happened?”

“Zenith wants all of us back. I’m a minor so I don’t really have a choice.”

“How long have you got before you have to go?” 

“Couple of days, maybe.” Riven sighed and started to put his clothes back on; Zenith meant home, and home meant his father, and he didn’t want to be naked when he thought about him. “Not like I’ll be gone forever though.”

“Yeah…” Luka looked uncomfortable.

“What?”

“I don’t think I want to fuck you while you’re at school, like not during term time,” he said slowly. “Not gonna lie, some of the other Red Fountain boys unnerve me.”

“Oh.” Riven hadn’t considered that Luka might worry about something like that. He shrugged. “That’s fine, I don’t usually leave for winter break if you’re still interested by then.”

“Sounds good.”


End file.
